Urban Nosgothic 2 Call to Arms
by VladimirsAngel
Summary: Once again a victim of her own life, Rhi finds London and Nosgoth growing ever closer together. Contains Defiance spoilers for those who have not played to the end. FINISHED!
1. Chapter 1

**URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2  –  CALL TO ARMS**

_Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created and developed by Eidos and Crystal Dynamics. _

_I said I was thinking of it. Now, with __Defiance__ under my belt, I'm actually going to try it. This story is the sequel to Urban Nosgothic, and will make a lot more sense if you've read the first one. However, I hope I'll be able to make it interesting enough to function on its own as well.  As the story begins, Rhi has just reached Avernus Cathedral with Raziel for the first time, and it is a cold day in February, 2004…_

_NB: if this doesn't work, or is in any small way tedious, tell me. I'll stop._

Casual kindness can be as vicious as cruelty, don't you feel that? I do. Everyone I meet these days is so kind, but so uncaring. 

"How's your life going, Rhi?"

"Make a lot of money, Rhi?"

Sometimes I come home so tired I fall asleep on the sofa in front of the TV. Those are the good nights. Some nights I don't come home at all, and those are the nights that I lie awake in strange beds and cry and wonder…

Somehow I really thought my life was at its worst just over a year ago, but look how wrong a girl can be.

I did go to Wales after Gary…

…well, that's a good point, isn't it?

I can't say Gary died, exactly, although being dragged off to Nosgoth in the company of two immensely powerful vampires is practically a death sentence for a human in itself. I don't really know what happened to him. Anyhow, after Gary was gone, I did go to Wales, and stayed there for several happy months, living off fresh air and rice  with Carrie and Martine. The police stopped asking me questions after a few months. Gary's body is presumably lying cold and anaemic somewhere in Nosgoth. Or maybe it's cold and walking around snarling, who knows? Either way, Gary is no longer on earth, dead or undead. They have no hope of ever finding him. 

I loved living in Wales. But Aberystwyth, beautiful though it is, is sadly lacking in work opportunities. Especially for a college drop-out like me whose work experience lends itself only to shelf-stacking and burger-flipping. Hell, the local McDonald's wouldn't accept me. Apparently I didn't show enough enthusiasm for scrubbing out deep-fat fryers at 2 a.m. 

I think about turning that lone opportunity down a lot these days.  Usually after the light has finally been turned out and I can lie in the dark and nurse my regrets like children. 

I finally ended up leaving my friends and moving to London. I was following the offer of office work, led by the lure of city money. Led by my greed, I guess, and look where it got me. I got a tiny flat in a huge, concrete horror of a residential block, in exactly the wrong part of London. The rent was all I could afford with the loan I'd been forced to get. I didn't have a lot to unpack. My TV, my futon, my PS2 and collection of games. A suitcase full of clothes and my one good interview suit. My bookshelves, from which little plastic Kain and Raziel stare down at me watchfully, protectively. Sometimes I can almost believe they're still here, still making sure I'm not screwing up by getting another abusive sod of a boyfriend. Sorry, guys…I just found another way to screw up…

I wore the suit to the job agency. It's an old suit, but my only good one. The skirt is a little too short, but I've got okay legs.  They nodded and smiled and wrote my name down, my pitiful credentials. They said they'd call. 

Funny, but running around with vampires seems to have improved my sense of smell. I can smell bullshit at twenty paces, these days.

There was no job. I walked home because I couldn't afford the Tube or taxi. I walked through the bad streets, in my short skirt. I called more agencies. They offered me work, but after a little calculation I worked out that my pay would just about cover my day-to-day commuting expenses, and do nothing for my loan repayments, credit cards, or overdraft. The same was true of taking government handouts. I just didn't qualify for enough. Now if I'd been a drug addict or a single mother, things might have been different…

And inevitably, after I'd gone through this pointless job-seeking charade for the fourth week running, I was made an offer my debts could not refuse. 

I guess it's not such a great sacrifice. It's not as if I was saving my virginity for Mr Right or anything. Mr Wrong already ruined that little girlish dream for me. At the moment, it's just another thing I have – maybe the last thing of value I have to give. Or in this case, to sell. I've already sold everything else. All except a couple of things…

This latest guy is a leaver, thank God. He's up and out of the bed bare seconds after we're finished.  The last one wanted to stay a few hours and play on my PS2. I told him it cost extra, and he slapped me and left. Good. That console is for me to play with.  How does he think I unwind after he's gone? I kick some vampire or sarafan ass, that's how.  That's what I kept, although in my desperation I sold my microwave and now have nothing to cook with at all except a toaster and a kettle. My one lifeline remains with me, because I can't bear to let it go. My TV, and my PS2. Five games. My very first client enabled me to buy a copy of Defiance, Kain and Raziel's latest outing (still no noticeable sign of Gary, although I I'm looking very hard at every walking corpse I encounter). It was my present to me, solace for the violated. I'm doing pretty well with it, I guess, and feeling more sympathetic towards Kain by the second.  

This one's married. Has to get back to the wife and kids. He glances at me as he puts the money on the nightstand. 

"You okay, yeah? That's  what we agreed?"

That's my old enemy casual kindness again. You see, he doesn't really care about me, but it assuages his own feelings of guilt to ask. I nod. He's through the door without another glance back. 

And, on cue, I burst into tears again. 

Every damn time. You'd think, after all I've been through – Gary, Raziel, nearly being mauled to death by Kain – you'd think I'd be tougher than this.  I curl up around my pillow and sob dryly. I almost cried at the cash machine earlier today when it displayed: BALANCE – 0000.36 CR. 

Weak. Weakness, weak sobbing. Stupid little weak helpless girl. Once a victim, always a victim. At an early age, someone must have tattooed "Victim" on my forehead in ink visible only to sadists.

I hear the door swing open again. Shouldn't have let go so soon. Mr Married must be back, drawn to the sound of my tears like a moth to the flame. I don't sit up. Maybe if I ignore him, he'll go away.  He'll be embarrassed anyway. 

A hand caresses my curled, bare back. The fingers are thick, and the nails long and sharp. Not Mr Married, and certainly not embarrassed.  I yelp and my head snaps up to face the intruder. 

My gaze travels up an arm the colour of new cornflowers, with corded lines of muscle as strong as spun steel. Three (fingers? Talons?) stroking my thin human skin gently, so gently. A powerful jaw, full dark lips currently thinned with unvoiced compassion. And yellow eyes, sharp, acid, almost glowing in the dark. Something is very wrong with my intruder;'s shoulders, because they seem huge and darkly hunched against the pale light of the door as it swings ajar.

My bite scars start to hum with pain and itch furiously. I clamp a hand to my neck, trembling and immobile.

"Poor child," Janos Audron says, and his voice is like the mellow, almost musical purr of a big cat, "poor child, what have they done to you?"

Casual kindness. Even the vampires have started doing it to me now. 


	2. Chapter 2

**URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 – CALL TO ARMS**

**Chapter 2**

_I think it's safe to say I was utterly delighted (and overwhelmed) by the positive reaction I received to the first chapter. Thankyou, all of you, so much. ^_^ This next chapter begins to throw in Defiance spoilers, just to reiterate. _

_Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos & Crystal Dynamics._

Why didn't I go back to Wales, you ask? Instead of selling my wretched self in the worst parts of London?

I was ashamed, is the simple answer. I'd done it once before I'd even really had time to think it through, and then I couldn't, wouldn't tell anyone. It's the same everywhere – it was the same with Gary. No-one ever wants to admit that it's happened to them.  Everyone always wants to think: "Things will get better. I can do this. It's not so bad. The money's pretty good….I can do this on my own…no-one ever has to know…" And the shame closes down around your heart like shackles, until you are more afraid of what will happen if anyone finds out than you are afraid of what you are actually doing. The price is too high, and so you shrink away from doing the right thing. 

Right now, I would have given anything, would have run buck naked down Regent Street in broad daylight, if I could have run fast enough to escape from my life. 

Right now, I should be screaming, but to be honest, I just don't have it in me anymore. 

Janos, his big cat-eyes fixed on me, reaches down towards me with one arm, very fast, too fast not to be a blow. I roll, hurling myself from my bed and flattening myself against the musty carpet. I can just about see the black tips of his clawed feet catching in the rumpled sheets as he perches on the side of the bed.   

"I will not harm you."

His voice sounds completely calm, as if he routinely faces hysterical madwomen wearing only their underwear. I turn my head away, concentrating on a big peel in the wallpaper. I can no longer see him, which is probably just as well because just thinking about having him here is giving me the wrenching horrors. 

Something comes flying over the edge of the mattress and hits me in the back of the neck. I claw at it wildly for a minute until the feel of fleece under my fingers makes me realise what it is. My bathrobe, my dressing gown. 

He was reaching for my _dressing gown_. 

It had been bunched up on the bedclothes underneath me, forgotten as always. Like I said, I am wearing only my working underwear, and my body is covered in fear sweat, cold and relentless. 

Janos is trying to be nice to me. Unlike Raziel before him, he seems centred, unfazed by his surroundings, and quite accepting of what to him must surely be an intolerably strange situation. 

I drag the warm robe over me, very slowly. His claws swing slightly, as if he is kicking his feet, bored, while he waits for me to stop being so….so _human_ and come out to talk to him. 

My bite scars are on fire. I can't face that, not again. My capricious brain throws a line from an old Flanders and Swann musical number at me: "_Eating people is wrong…"_

Eating people may be wrong if you're human. It's just like making toast if you're a vampire. And feeling like a piece of nice fresh toast is doing nothing for my desire to move from this corner. 

The bed-slats groan with strain. The clawed feet vanish upwards, and as I look up too, heart hammering, in panic, Janos' head appears over the edge of my tatty mattress.  

He must be lying stomach-down on my bed. The wings –

Janos cocks his head to one side, expression set in that familiar cast of slightly world-weary concern. Rabbit-caught-in-headlights, I stare back. 

"I – will – not – harm – you," he repeats, as if talking to a half-wit. His fangs flash behind his lips as he speaks, and he stretches down a pale blue arm to help me up. 

Suddenly the desire to move from this corner is overwhelming. I bolt. And I almost make it to the door, too, but something that feels as tough and soft as steel cable wrapped in cotton-wool knocks into my shoulder and pins me to the doorframe. I can't help myself. I stare. 

All he's done is spread one wing. 

That single wing must be over ten foot long, and the secondary flight feathers spill down like black knives, points gracefully spread towards the floor. The arch of the wing is brushing the lampshade. He has pinned me with only the wing-tip, the smooth length of the primaries cutting across my collarbone. Who knew feathers were so tough? 

So much for not wanting to harm me.

As if he senses my continued terror, the wing abruptly draws back, and I watch it fold like some marvellous magic trick. It tucks behind one blue shoulder, all grace and elegance, and Janos' neck and shoulder muscles bunch under his skin like snakes winding under silk. 

I become aware that I am still snivelling uncontrollably, salt tears and nose running unchecked, while he stands there, quite calmly, looking like a Pre-Raphaelite fantasy, or a statue from a graveyard. 

A guardian angel. 

My voice rattles in my throat. 

"Have you –"

I remember Raziel, how terrifying he was to me in all his decayed glory. Somehow Janos is more terrifying still. Raziel's ravaged form gave at least a hint of some past vulnerability, sandstone worn down by harsh environments: Janos is marble, smooth, perfect, and resisting all age. 

Then I remember seeing Janos in Defiance only the day before, his comatose shape resting amongst the candles while Raziel and Vorador looked on. My eyes flick to his chest. No sign of blood. No torn ribcage or shadowed hole where a heart used to be. And I remember his appearance in Soul Reaver 2 – infamously the only person to show any true compassion towards Raziel's plight.

_When__ have you come from, Janos?…Have I really sunk so low that my poor diseased brain has dragged you out of Nosgoth too?_

And suddenly I can speak properly again.

"H-have you come here to help m-me?" I ask him, but he is not looking at me anymore: instead that sharp, intelligent gaze has fixed upon the little plastic figures of Raziel and Kain on my shelves. 

He steps towards them in two quick paces, and lifts one to examine it. It is Raziel he picks up, and turns the action figure to and fro against the dusty light from the overhead bulb. One dark talon touches and lifts the thin plastic wings, almost stroking them as if he wants to remember the texture of them.

"It is possible," he says, turning those bright eyes back on me for a brief moment, then returning his full attention to dolly-Raz, "that it is you who are going to help me…"


	3. Chapter 3

**URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 – CALL TO ARMS**

**Chapter 3**

Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos & Crystal Dynamics.

_Once again, thank you all for your encouragement and wonderful reviews. I hope to do proper reviews responses every few chapters, so watch this space. ^_^ I also apologise to everyone who wants longer chapters. I'm trying with Chapter 4. Honest. _

And I really, really have nothing to say to that. My eyes turn to the little stack of game cases that are also sitting piled on the bottom rung of the bookshelf. 

Janos follows my gaze, crouches lithely by the shelf and starts going through each box individually, obviously consumed with curiosity. His wings arch up so that they are not pressed uncomfortably into the floor, and they move, twitch, beat gently to mirror his emotions as he leafs through the little booklets. One of these, the Soul Reaver manual, he frowns at, presses it to his face and inhales deeply, eyes closed. 

Raziel had kept that booklet tucked within his cowl for quite some time: Kain had leafed through it. 

He can still smell them on it. I wonder what he's making of that. 

Janos makes little noises of either surprise or, increasingly, dismay as he reads. I seem to be forgotten for the moment, something I am not entirely ungrateful for. I slump down onto the bed, staring at my visitor, wondering if I will be able to influence his actions in the same way as I influenced an unwilling Kain.

_Janos__…go away. _

_Janos__…go rob me a bank. _

Janos looks at me now, and his face is drawn with worry. "Is all this true?" he asks, waving my game collection at me. "I did not want to believe…"

Obviously there will be no controlling this one. Not yet, anyhow. I nod at him, dumbly. The fact that his world is a game to me has not unsettled him in the least – but then, I remind myself, Janos is about the closest thing Nosgoth has to a mystic. Travelling to other worlds and reading scriptures about his own is probably all in a night's work for an Ancient. 

This is also (I realise, with a twinge of horror) why he thinks I can help him. He thinks I am some sort of oracle, with my game manuals and little statues of the main players in Nosgoth's game of destiny and death. He thinks I know something that he does not, and that may be all that's keeping me alive right now.

What will happen when he finds out that I am worse than useless to him?

He stands up, and suddenly he is massive again, those wings filling my small room. I hold my breath and skitter backwards on the bed. __

Will he be angry now? He looks….

…he looks sad. Very deeply sad, as if his world is about to fall apart in front of his eyes. As if he's lost everything he had ever hoped for. As if he knows that all his bridges are burnt and that there's no going back, only going forwards, and that going forwards will be painful. 

He looks…

I see that look in the mirror every day. 

"Raziel…" he says, softly, and I don't think he's even aware I'm still here. 

And then there is a knock on my door. 

The door is not closed properly, and it trembles on the latch as whoever is outside pounds again, impatiently. 

Janos crouches. His wings spike up angrily, and I'm suddenly reminded that, sad-eyed mystic or no, this is one of the oldest vampires Nosgoth has ever played host to. Removing his heart did not kill him. What could?

"Who is it?" he demands, not of the unseen knocker, but of me. For a moment my mind is blank and I have no idea what to tell him, then I look at the clock and I remember in a rush of acid panic. 

It's my next appointment. My eleven o' clock. _Oh, god_. And my room is full of cobalt-blue skin and black wings. 

Janos looks at me sharply. "Your scent just changed," he says. "You were frightened before. Now…you are terrified."

His eyes narrow, and my heart hits my throat. Does my fear excite him? The lost look is gone. Now he is a predator, an eagle, a lion. He looks blank and hungry, and nothing more.  

The knocking stops. I hear footsteps draw back along the corridor, then with a crunch my door is kicked open, rebounding from the wall with an ugly splintering noise. 

It's the guy who wanted to play on my PS2, the one who slapped me. Apparently I wasn't such a worthless cow after all, seeing as he's back.

I don't have to be a vampire to smell the beer fumes that are infused into every part of his being, his clothes, his thinning hair. He is ridiculously drunk, and, as a result of this, manages not to spot Janos for a whole sentence. 

"You! Bitch!" 

Okay, not a long sentence. And it seems my name hasn't changed from when Gary gave it to me.

He lurches at me. He has a five-pound note in one hand, and an open condom in the other. I guess I should be grateful for the condom, but I'd've hoped for more than a fiver…

He trips over Janos' foot, looks up, ready to be angry….

…looks up, into blazing vampire eyes, and up again into the glossy arch of those wings. 

Janos opens his mouth and hisses, warningly. His long, pointed canine teeth are instantly obvious. My client goggles for a long moment. His eyes consult with the beer in his bloodstream and come to the conclusion that the beer is not responsible.

He belches, in what I presume is mild shock. 

Janos snaps those teeth together once, and the man sways on his feet, leaning in with a bemused frown. One hand reaches out, wavering towards Janos' chest, as if he's about to see if he can touch this blue-skinned monstrosity. 

His nerve fails him at the last minute, and he staggers back, head wagging in negation. He turns, runs out into the hall, and wastes a few seconds stabbing at the call button on the elevator before, seeing Janos following him out of my room, he makes a break for the open stairwell. 

Bad move. All my animal instincts are clamouring at me, and those instincts have saved me more times than I care to admit. Right now, my poor abused brain is cheerfully giving me a Discovery Channel special on the hunting habits of Ancient vampires. 

_"Ancient vampires,"_ begins the relentless commentator in my mind, _"prefer to hunt in wide open spaces, where their huge wing span will not hinder their movements…"_

Janos, in pursuit of my client, is smacking those huge wings into the doorframe and against the walls as he breaks into a run. I can't help myself. I look out of my door after him. 

_"They are uniquely developed to take down their human prey from above…."_

In the open stairwell, Janos' wings fan wide to full extension, shining like a raven's. He leaps from the top step, hovering in midair for brief seconds as he looks down at the fleeing drunk below, who is taking the steps two or three at a time in his panic. His wings are so large that at full spread in the low ceiling space, his primaries brush cobwebs from the walls. 

_"An Ancient vampire has adopted a hunting technique similar to that of diving seabirds such as gannets and sea eagles…"_

The wings snap closed, abruptly, and with them folded almost flat Janos dives like an arrow, directly down the middle of the stairwell. A few jet feathers float lazily down in his wake, clipped from his carpals by the handrails. 

_"The best thing to do if attacked by an Ancient vampire is to…well, just try not to get attacked by one, folks…"_

From below, out of my line of sight, there is a high-pitched but unmistakably masculine shriek, and then silence. I fold against the doorframe, shivering, exhausted already with tension, and wipe the new tears away with a trembling hand as they fall. 

_Oh, god, oh god._ Somehow even though I should have been expecting it after being exposed to Raziel and Kain, the complete incapacity of vampires to understand why they should not just kill humans randomly still has the ability to render me shaking and mindless. I suppose it's the ingrained culture of the battery chicken who sees their neighbour taken away to the block: if it can happen to them, it can happen to you. 

Into the silence comes a new sound, a clicking sound, dull at first, then echoing as it approaches. It takes me a few seconds to realise what it is. 

It's a vampire climbing the stairs, his cloven feet clicking on the metal. 

_Why is he using the st-_

Of course. The stairwell is big enough for him to dive through with his wings folded, but too small for him to comfortably fly back up. 

And so I wait, listening to his apparently un-hurried footsteps, and when I see him again at last I actually do manage to scream.

His beautiful sculpted face is covered with gore. The blood looks slick and purple against the blueness of his skin. It gleams across his chin, all along the right side of his jaw, and as I watch he actually lifts one claw delicately to his face and wipes some of the excess fluid away. 

The claws, too, are spattered with blood, and the state of his arms indicates that he has been at least up to his wrists in it. 

Sobbing, my breaths wailing in my throat, I turn my face away from the angel of death before me. To my complete horror, however, he crouches beside me, wings encircling, and pulls me gently against his chest with comforting arms. I can smell the blood, feel it clotting into my hair as he strokes my head with every appearance of compassion. The metallic, coppery stench of it makes me retch, and if I hadn't already been choking on my own tears I'm sure I would have thrown up. 

"Do not be afraid. He is dead. Let me take you somewhere safe," he says, "and we can talk. I have so many questions."

He draws back his hands and brings them together in a single, applauding motion.

And, mercifully, I black out.  


	4. Chapter 4

**URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 : CALL TO ARMS**

**Chapter 4**

Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos & Crystal Dynamics. 

_Once again, thankyou so much for all the kind reviews and emails encouraging me! ^_^ Proper review responses next chapter. _

When I open my eyes again it is still dark.

For a moment I toy with the idea that I am blind, but as my eyes adjust to the gloom I realise that no, I'm just in some very large, rather cold, grey stone room. The little light there is seems dirty, yellowish, and flickering badly. 

What is that _smell_…?

It smells partly of very aged stone, partly of snow, and partly of something else that for the moment I'm having trouble identifying. But overwhelmingly the place smells of smoke. 

It's the torches on the walls I'm smelling. 

My bathrobe catches roughly on the wall as I sit up fast, and a cloud of dislodged masonry dust makes me cough. Real dust. Real coughing. 

But I'm not here. I can't be here.

Because if I'm here, if I'm really, _really_ here, then I'm as good as dead. Or I'm finally completely insane. Either way, there is no longer any hope for me, no hope at all.

That other smell, the one I was having problems with? It's blood. Somewhere, very close to here, is a huge amount of blood. 

Janos comes walking out of a nearby archway, carrying something in his hands. He kneels beside me, offers it. It's water.  We would make a beautiful picture here, the two of us, with Janos outlined against the pale, dirty light, hands outstretched to tilt the water-dish against my lips. The Supplication Of The Ancient…

He seems eerily composed, and I wonder how long I've been lying here like a pile of crumpled rags. My skin is going almost blue with the cold, and my feet are already numb. 

Maybe this is why Janos is the colour he is. 

I let out a sub-hysterical giggle, almost drown myself on the water, and realise that Janos is watching every move I make like a hawk. 

"Who are you?" he asks, and as this is probably the sanest question I'm going to get asked all day, I answer it. What does it matter who I am? I am a human in Nosgoth, a world breaking under the weight of its own corruption, and the place is full of vampires…

...or is it though?

I suddenly realise that although I can no longer be in much doubt where I am, I have absolutely no idea_ when _I am. 

Janos opens his mouth to ask another question, and it is at this moment that from outside we both hear a dull snapping sound, like a glacier in pain. His head turns alertly, and the look in his eyes does not do much to reassure me. 

Janos knows something is coming, and he is not at all happy about it. 

"Be still," is his only warning, and then…

Then he gets up and walks away, briskly, cloven feet clipping on the floor. 

And I don't know what it is – whether it's the clothes he's wearing, something about the tense set of his wings, or the cold, or the sudden, swarming feeling of vertigo: but I know when I am. 

_"Let me take you somewhere safe…"_

Janos has brought me to the safest place he knows, his Aerie, his Retreat. 

Only I know that it isn't as safe as he could hope. 

He leaves through a hefty set of doors that slam shut with a finality I cannot argue with. Those doors must be built for vampire strength – not in my wildest dreams could I move them. 

Nor do I know why I would want to, but some instinct drives me to the doors, pushes me up against the wood. 

If I were to escape, where would I go? If I didn't freeze to death out there, the Sarafan would most likely shoot me, being as they kill anything that moves in vampire territory these days. 

And as I lean against the door, I force my teeth to cease their chattering. Quiet. Stay quiet. _Be still_, as Janos said. 

It is in this quiet that I hear Raziel's voice on the other side of the door, and I know for certain that I will shortly be dead. 

I listen as he speaks to Janos, and it's a conversation that I've replayed on my PS2 and in my head countless times. 

"Raziel? My child, what have they done to you…?"

A part of me wants to pound on the wood: _Raziel__, it's me, remember me?_ But the fear, fortunately, stops me. Raziel would not be in the mood to receive me as graciously as he had before.

And besides, would he remember me at all?

I would have stayed, trapped in the bizarreness of my situation and strangely lulled by the familiarity of the words and voices from behind the door – but it turns out that this isn't the only door into this room. 

Footsteps, heavy, booted feet on the stone. Clanking, loud enough to be heard miles off, as armoured bodies push through the halls of the Retreat.

Now I do pound on the door, wanting to cry out in warning like a child: _The Sarafan are coming! The Sarafan are coming!_ My voice is useless, caught in my throat.

But Raziel is already out of range, unable to help, and Janos will meet his fate whether I am here or not. Heart thumping, I am frozen in plain view of the intruders as voices call out to each other beyond the second door. Angry male voices. And one, sounding triumphant. 

They break in the door with some effort and swearing. They are a glorious if terrible sight, gleaming like a treasury, reds and golds, and weapons drawn.  I'm not entirely sure which one of them it is who backhands me almost carelessly into the wall with a gauntleted arm. My mind flashes me a glimpse of dark, cruel eyes, and curved lips that seem familiar too.

Perhaps it was Sarafan Raziel who hit me, I'm in no condition to be sure. My lips are giving me so much pain they can only be split, and my cheekbone seems already to be swelling up to twice natural size. I bang my bare knees on the floor with force as I drop to the cold stone, and that pain is the last that I feel for some time…

_Ugh._

I think it is the unbearable stickiness that brings me out of it. 

I raise my head from the carpet with a snuffle, and half the carpet seems to come with me. My nose, lips and left cheek are clotted with my own blood, and it is drying in a glutinous mass on the floor where I have obviously been lying. 

_Ugh. _

That ugly, threadbare fifties carpet can mean only one thing – I'm at home. I'm in my flat. 

I am in too much pain to move, my knees inform me as I try to push myself groggily upright. So I lie still, breathing like a chronic asthmatic as the air forces itself past my bloodied nose and ruined lips, and take stock of my surroundings.

The first thing that catches my eye is the abandoned condom and the five-pound note, lying just a few inches away. That, at least, makes perfect sense. The drunk guy I was due to see must've got too close, knocked me out, I had a fun little Sarafan hallucination, and now…

…now I can see the next thing, and it's a black feather far too large to be from any bird. It's lying on top of one of my boots. 

That settles it, and I have to get up. Right now. 

The stench of Janos' stronghold still lingers in my sinuses, even behind the cloying blood. _Was I…did I…?_

That is. IT. 

That is finally, unequivocably, IT. 

I. 

Need.

Help.

I grab the mattress with trembling hands and drag myself onto the bed, suppressing a yelp as my scraped knees knock the headboard. From here I can see the whole room, practically, and can survey the splintering on my door without despairing. 

I shouldn't lose my deposit over that…

It is so tempting just to lie back here, to close my eyes, to make the world and all its confusing Nosgothian hallucinations go away. I don't care if I'm in denial, I like it here. Welcome to Denial, population 2,876 and still rising. But I know too much about injuries to give in to my exhaustion. If I lie here, my knees will stiffen until bending them is an agony far beyond endurance: my face will swell and become inflamed, infected, if I don't take care of these cuts.

And besides, there is probably a body in the stairwell that will require detailed explanation to the relevant authorities. And this time, I expect, with my record of mysterious disappearing boyfriends, I will be arrested. 

I am surprising myself with how calm I'm being about all this. It's only a shame that when Kain abruptly sits up from the other side of the bed, looking even more gory than I am and gasping as if at the very edge of death, that I give in to the screaming again.


	5. Review Responses

**REVIEW RESPONSES**

_The next chapter is just on the next page, if you want to skip this part. If not, here's to you, the reviewers…._

**Shadowrayne****:** Hi there! Glad you're enjoying it – and yes, Janos is a proper vamp. Just has nicer manners than most, is all. 

**Soulshard****:** *hugs* Very glad to see you back again. Rhi's needed therapy for years!

**The Marmalade Cat:** I do realise how much you enjoy it, you tell me ! *hug* As for all your questions…well, you'll have to wait and see… ^_^ And about the action figures…I wish they'd make one of Janos…..*dodges the ninjas*

**Komikitty**: Hi there! Sorry it confused you, but I'm really happy you're enjoying it. And yes, I think I'd have fainted long before Rhi did. Maybe she's tougher than she thinks!

**Crystaline****-Dragon:** Thankyou – and here's your update….I hope it was soon enough!

**Tom T Thomson:** *hands over a printed copy of "The Fauna of Nosgoth" – for all those moments when identifying vampires in their natural environment* Thankyou! Here's some more for you…

**Dark_Sephiroth****:**  Hi there, glad you're having fun reading…Where do I get the ideas? I have no clue. They just happen. I'm really pleased to hear you think it's better than the first. I was really worried I'd ruin it. 

**Light:** *hugs* Thankyou! Always good to hear from you. ^_^

**Mikoto**** Zoku:**  *bounces* hi there! Don't worry…this may not be the last we see of Janos, I feel. Someone should tell The Discovery Channel they're missing a Special… ^_^

**Deedee****:** *hugs* You can jump up and down, shout, AND cheer if you like. ^_^ I don't think I've got the skills to draw that picture…you offering? *winkwink* Love your detailed reviews as always  – they're so helpful to me when constructing future chapters. 

**Kamikaze Dhampir** (Genesis): *w00t* yep…Kain's back. 

**Syvia****:** *glomp* Thanks for reading as always…. Ha ha *evil cackle*…You may wonder how long she'll stay out…as you and I know, once you get into Nosgoth it's very hard to leave….*Rhi hugs you back*

**Emerada**: Thankyou very much for reviewing. Always glad to find out I have new readers!

**HealerAriel**: Yes, Janos is one pretty vampire…here's another chapter for you…

**Guardian:** Thankyou for the reviews (coherant & incoherent) I'm really happy you're enjoying it. *pats Brogan and gives him pizza*

**Dragonseer****:** *hugs* Hi! Glad to see you! Janos's perfect table manners obviously let him down this once…oh, and I bet you're pleased you were right about Rhi going to Nosgoth!!

**Fallen Paladin Shadow:** I'm glad you like my descriptions of Janos. That vampire is a real treat to describe….

**Angel-Chan 2**: Thankyou for all the praise! I hope you enjoy reading the rest…

**Spectral Sereda**: Eating drunk evil people is practically cabaret. ^_^ *hugs* Thankyou for reading and leaving such nice comments. All your comments on aspects of my writing are so helpful, they let me know what I'm doing right. 

**Morbid Knight:** Thankyou! I'm happy you're happy *grins* Just hope you enjoy the rest of it.

**Sephiroth**** Hates You**: Hi there, thanks for reading. Rhi may be in for a long spell of helping (or hindering) vamps…

**The Realm ****Walker****:** Sorry about the short chapters! It just seems to be the way I write! *looks sheepish* here's more for you… I'm glad you think Janos is in character. It's something I worry about sometimes. 

**Gorman99:** *smiles* I wish my writing got done that quickly!! Still, here's another chapter – hope you like it just as much.

**Shiwolf****:** *hugs* Hello! So glad you came to read this!! How's the tarot going?

_*pant, pant* I hope I got everyone. Right. Onto the next chapter.  I may start off writing these stories just for me, but I always end up writing them for you. Thankyou so much for reading. _

_*grimaces* now I'm sounding trite…I'll just go so you can read the next chapter in peace…_


	6. Chapter 5

**URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 – CALL TO ARMS**

**Chapter 5**

Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos & Crystal Dynamics

For a long moment, Kain and I stare at each other in mutual disbelief. 

Well. He's staring at my face, I'm staring at his ribcage. 

There's a…a…

How do you mention it?

_Excuse me, Mr Kain, you appear to have a hole…_

_Hi, I can't help noticing you seem to have lost something…_

Kain blinks at me, seeming disorientated, and that in itself is scary enough. If he doesn't know what's going on, what chance do I have?

He looks as if the foundations of his certainty have been demolished, quickly and ruthlessly.  And the fact that we both look like an accident in an operating theatre is not helping. I can't stop staring at the butcher's-shop mess that was his chest. He appears, however, to be recovering himself – after his first gasp of shock he is rapidly regaining his old poise. 

"I remember you," he says, eventually, and my relief at this is ridiculous to behold. The last time I met him I had quickly de-evolved him into a savage young killer with no regard for human life whatsoever. Yet, somehow, I'm glad he hasn't forgotten me. 

I had forgotten something myself: quite how alien he looks, up close. 

He sits on the mattress and as yet makes no move to get up. His eyes flick from his own wound to the various abrasions and splits in my skin, and he frowns. 

"I…am not dead," he says to himself, after a moment's careful thought. The pain must be incredible, but it doesn't seem to be bothering him. I flex my knees experimentally and let out an undignified yelp of agony. 

Kain strokes aimlessly at the ragged hole in his torso as if interested in the texture of his own torn skin, and then pushes himself up in a graceful, smooth movement that would put a human dancer to shame. Standing, he towers effortlessly over even my tallest bookcases. The thin light from the bulb plays poorly on his craggy face and gleams from his yellow eyes. One hand is still clutched to the gash in his chest, and the other is hanging aimless and empty at his side. 

No sword. 

What happened to him? What, thinking about his ridiculous power logically, can _possibly_ have happened to him?

"What has happened to you?" he asks, brusquely. "Are you again undergoing some form of duress that requires my services?  Another… " (and he gropes for the long-ago word) "…hospital I need to get you to? I do not appreciate being at the beck and call of some feeble human girl."

I have no answer to that. My legs will still not hold me, and so I cannot escape from his annoyance. 

And that is all it is – annoyance. His emotion pushes at me like heat from an open oven, but this is not Kain in anger. He's only mildly put out by his sudden incursion into the human realm. This is Peeved Kain.

I get the horrible feeling that he's saving his anger up for something really worthwhile, and when Furious Kain is unleashed, god help anyone who happens to be in his way.

"I cannot be here," is his next observation. He starts to pace, and in a spat of temper sweeps all my games, action figures and books to the floor. 

Denial welcomes its newest citizen. I resist the urge to hide under the duvet, for it will do no good, and concentrate, like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, on getting my legs to work properly. 

Kain gives me a sudden, suspicious stare, and sniffs. The black feather on the floor stirs under his cloven feet. 

"Janos Audron has been here," he says. "Where is Raziel? Tell me!"

He takes the distance between me and him in a single stride and grabs me by the collar. 

_Don't shake, please don't shake, I think my teeth are loose…_

"I don't know," I manage, and he looks stricken at that, as if something terrible is about to happen and there isn't a single thing he can do to prevent it. 

I have truly never seen Kain look stricken before. It's as if just for a moment the hard layers were wrenched away and all there was left was this immense weariness, reluctance to accept the situation...yes, and fear, too. 

It's beginning to make me think I really should have tried harder to complete Defiance. I got stuck in Avernus when business began to boom, and just haven't had the time to make it to the end.

The similarity of Kain and Janos's injuries, however, is not lost on me. 

Kain drops me, ignoring my hiss of pain as my bruised skull is jolted, and paces harder. 

He's going to wear out the carpet if he's not careful…oh, god, the hysteria is well and truly setting in.

"Why can I not_ leave_?" he explodes, after a few minutes of this tiger-in-a-cage impression. "I should be dead, and yet I am not. I should be in Nosgoth, when I clearly am not." 

He whirls on me and the look in his eyes is anything but friendly. 

"It is you," he accuses. "It has been you all this time. I should kill you."

And with that simple statement, he puts his considerations into action and pounces on me, unbelievably fast, with fangs bared. 

Two things happen. 

One, I am stupidly aware of inconsequential things. Kain's blood from the gaping hole in his chest is staining my robe as his massive body presses down on mine. Bloodstains do not easily come clean. This robe is a goner. 

Two, I am bringing my hands up to try and defend my already scarred throat. It has felt his teeth before, and all rationality demands that I prevent this from happening again. And in my left hand is the first thing that I could grab to put between myself and him…

The game manual makes an almost comical papery slapping noise as it hits Kain in the face. He growls at the interference, but as he reaches out with one arm to grasp my throat and the other arm to pin my wrist, the growl is abruptly curtailed in favour of stunned silence. 

I am in too much pain to really give him my full attention. Plus, the world is beginning to acquire that pretty shade of grey that precedes unconsciousness as Kain's grip does its job of cutting off my air supply. 

He is staring at the picture on the cover. I am forgotten, a sad sack of skin, blood and mortality hanging from his hands. The picture is his world, and everything else is merely window-dressing. 

My gasping as I approach strangulation must have interrupted his reverie, because he relaxes his grip in irritation and sits down on the edge of the mattress to read the little booklet.

I claw my way back to consciousness with reluctance, because the dull aching in my jaw and cheeks is now becoming a hot, sharp pain, and realise how small that booklet looks in his claws. 

He reads quickly. No-one could ever accuse Kain of being all brawn and no brain. When he is done, he looks back at me and the expression in his eyes is unreadable. 

"And you have…_played_ this?"

Although he recalls meeting me, and recalls the games, it is still hard for him to voice the concept, and while I struggle to answer, he shakes his head in negation. 

"It is not important. You come with me."

He gets up, tucking the booklet away (do those trousers have pockets or has he just slipped it into the waistband?) and pulls on my wrist to make me follow him.

The yell I give voice to as my legs take my weight again for the first time is practically unrecognisable as human. Even Kain looks vaguely startled. 

"I will not carry you," he begins, as if the concept were as ridiculous as carting a beef cow around with you under one arm. 

And at that point my voice returns to me. I wish it hadn't, because, judging by the remark it comes out with, it has returned several hours before my brain. 

"C-can I at least get s-some clothes?" I stammer, and watch his heavy, horned brows draw down in exasperated disapproval.

"To have humoured you in this manner, Janos must really have become a bleeding heart," he says, eventually. "And thus, so must I." 

I fight to read his expression for almost a whole minute, before realising that he is almost smiling at me. Kain has just made what must be his first pun in centuries. 

Should I laugh, do you think? 


	7. Chapter 6

**URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 : CALL TO ARMS**

**Chapter 6**

**Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos and Crystal Dynamics**

_Here's hoping that FFnet has recovered from its minor spasm… ^_^_

The only thing that's really occupying me as I drag my jeans up painfully slowly, is that I hope Kain doesn't want to go all that far. 

There's just no way I can walk, you see. I can make it maybe a block or so, but that will be it, or risk being crippled for life. 

_Oh, but what's worse?_ my brain asks me sarcastically. _You really want to take him on the Tube? _

Kain says, "Quickly.", and that one word makes me move twice as fast.  He is staring at me. I would never have dared to ask him to turn around while I stripped off the ruined robe and underwear. So that's it. There's no going back to sanity now that Kain's seen me naked. 

I don't think he's the slightest bit interested in whether I'm clothed or not. If he's not going to eat me, then really he's not all that bothered how I'm looking. 

However, something about that one word suggests that he _will_ start bothering about me if I don't get a move on. 

I throw on the biggest sweater I can find and slip into my white trainers. There's still a faint brown stain on these trainers, from when I stepped in blood in Cattle Lane, months ago. 

Why do I get the feeling that I should have bought black trainers? 

Kain stalks out through the door, herding me in front of him with a swipe of his arm. I hobble before him, dwarfed by his shadow. 

What is he going to do with me….?

There is no way my knees are going to cope with the stairs, and after Janos's little display I'm not sure I can face them anyway. I press the call button and Kain glares at me. I can tell from the look on his face that if a lift is going to be a problem for him, the Tube would be impossible. 

So I'm quite understandably downcast when he says, half-way down to the ground floor, "You will take me back to where I first met you."

_Oh no. _

That's at least an hour away by train. He can't be…oh, no, he's never anything other than serious. 

So I nod. What else can I do? Maybe when I collapse after a few streets he'll just kill me and have done with it. 

The elevator doors judder open and Kain and I step out into the lobby. I'm ashamed and terrified of it, but I have to grab at his arm as I nearly fall opening the outer doors of the building. His skin is deathly cold and feels rough like rock. Kain grunts in a disapproving manner but fortunately for me, does not take offence. For all I know, human girls who dare lay one finger on his illustrious person without permission usually get thrown to the fledgelings. 

I am adrift for a while in the safe harbour of his patience. Unfortunately, this is not a large harbour, probably enough room for a couple of fishing dinghys and a lobster pot, and when the storm rises again I'm fairly sure I will be swept away. 

There are no sirens in the street, no police in the lobby. I crane my neck, trying to see into the stairwell. The body must have so far gone unnoticed. 

Or maybe there is no body at all…? 

It's just as my mind tries to buffer itself against the awfulness of the situation that I notice the thin line of blood seeping along the cracked floor tiles at the entrance to the stairway.

Nope. No comfort to be had here.

Kain drags me on, out into the open. 

I take a deep breath of cloying London air, and let it out slowly through my damaged lips. Kain pushes me in the back in an unfriendly manner, and I take the hint, start limping towards the nearest Underground station. 

It is now just a little before one in the morning, and the streets are ominously quiet. On a Tuesday night, I don't expect even that many clubbers are about. 

Kain sniffs again, as if he really can't credit the carbon monoxide stink of the city, and pads along silently at my side, one set of massive talons encircling my wrist. 

Wouldn't want me running off on him, would he?

Run? Hah!

I can barely walk. If I was running from Gary, I'd've wanted a good set of legs and a good ten-minute head start. Running from Kain would require not only good legs, but good trainers, good stamina, and a good three day's head start. 

The Underground Station at King's Cross is much the same as any Tube station, really. Low ceilinged, dull, greyish. Escalators one end, stairs to the street the other.  At one a.m., also mercifully empty. If I wasn't so scared, I'd be almost pleased with myself for having walked this far unaided. It's amazing what the threat of being ripped open by an angry vampire will do for you. 

I'm also reasonably surprised that we haven't been stopped. Dark it may be, but the police love to pick on suspicious things on the streets at this hour, and I think one bloodied prostitute and a massive, bare-chested vampire probably count as suspicious. 

The ticket desks are unmanned, but the automatic barriers and vending machines are still very much active. My mind is just running over the possibilities of having to buy Kain a ticket when I realise he is no longer at my side. The sounds of a ticket barrier being kicked ruthlessly into inactivity thunder from my left.

Subtlety will get him everywhere. 

I don't for one moment think that he understands how the gates work. I can only assume that he wanted to go through for some reason and it was (naturally) barring his way. It's not even as understandable as mindless vandalism. It's purely arrogance and power:_ I can do this, so there is no reason why I should not…_

I walk over to where he is now examining a tube map with interest, and wait for him to notice me. Me, try and get his attention? I don't think so. 

His chest looks miraculously healed. There's still an angry red indent over the heart side of his torso, which looks inflamed and painful, but the gaping hole is no longer there. 

Wish I could do that. I wish it was that simple, you know? Okay, my own wounds will also heal, given time, but the wounds inside…wounds in the heart and the mind…they never heal. At least, not for me. I can remember every blow Gary gave me, every equally hard-hitting word, every night I cried for something I can't even remember losing anymore. Gary, and everything after him, has robbed me of my hope. And each time I remember it, the pain drags at me inside as if my heart has been squeezed in talons every bit as vicious as Kain's…

He must have felt my eyes upon the scar, because he reaches up, that same uncertainty as before flickering in his own yellow gaze, and covers it with his hand. 

"What are you looking at?" he demands. "Take me back. Now."

I scuttle lamely down into the depths of the Underground, feeling all the while his angry stare on my back, and wonder what will happen if we god-forbid do meet anyone. 

There's something not right down here.

Okay, it's the Underground at night. Not the most comforting of places to be, even when accompanied by the most terrifying thing currently resident on this earth (who is glaring now at a Cadbury chocolate machine as we wait for the next train) but still…

…it feels….wrong. 

The air is warm from the tunnel as I stare into the dark, praying that the train will come soon. The Underground is like that: full of passages through which sudden blasts of warm or cold air hit you like a slap in the face. It is never still. Air is always moving, and my hair always gets an attack of static when I'm down here. The electricity running the trains, I guess. You can hear that, too, down here – it hums in the very walls and sparks fro the line as the trains pass. 

There is someone else here, but far enough away down the platform that Kain's unlikely appearance is not noticeable. They're playing the game all late-night travellers play in London: if you see someone else travelling through the streets after midnight, no matter how sick, loud, aggressive or insane they may be, you ignore them in case they try and mug you. 

The traveller's instinct probably saved that man tonight. 

And yet…

I don't think I'm the only one who's uneasy down here. Kain is pacing again, but this is different to the clipped, angry pacing he was doing in my flat. This is alert, head-up, waiting-for-something…

The hum of electricity becomes almost unbearable. My already sore teeth ache as if caught in the backlash of a drill. Kain winces (obviously vampire ears and teeth are supersensitive…) and tries to say something, but it's lost under the screech of feedback that rolls out of the tunnel preceding the train. 

My heart hammers. This is not right, not right at all. I've been travelling the Tube for weeks, and many times before in previous years. It's never sounded like this. 

The train rattles out of the tunnel with a final burst of static and screech, and with my hands still covering my ears I look up to see Kain leap.

He leaps like nothing human could ever aspire to. From a flat-footed start he gains the roof of the train in scant seconds, makes no slip, just a crouched and perfect landing on the curved shiny surface. 

_What  now__…? Is he attacking the damn train..?_

But then I see the reason for his leap, and the looming form behind it. The Reaver is lodged in the metal roof of the carriage, and above it is poised a demon, chittering with irritation as Kain bares his fangs and roars. 


	8. Chapter 7

**URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 : CALL TO AREMS**

**Chapter 7**

_Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain was created by Eidos._

The train will move off.

The train is going to move off. 

Oh my god, what am I supposed to do?

Kain bellows again, a furious, coughing snarl that echoes from the rounded walls. He drags the Reaver from its place with a spray of sparks, and whips the sword around in a vicious arc.

_The demons…they have a name…_

My brain fails me. It's happily able to tell me how to tie my shoelaces and that chocolate in Tube station vending machines is overpriced, but it can't supply me with a name for that snapping clawed horror…

_…may begin with H…._

Kain's clawed feet thump on the metal and the demon gives an unearthly screech. 

 "Stand Clear of the Closing Doors," admonishes the automatic announcement, and it's then that I make my decision.

I scramble onto the train just as the doors slide closed, and lie on the metal flooring listening to the thumping and scrabbling of a really good fight going on just above. The train glides off smoothly, heading for the tunnel.

"The next station is Angel," the train's automatic announcer informs me as I lie face-down on the dirty carriage floor. 

About to go into the tunnels.

Should I have told him to duck?

Why am I doing this?

I could have lain on the floor at Kings Cross and waited for the police to come and get me. Why am I doing this stupid, crazy thing?

The roof above me abruptly punctures: the distinctive curved blade of the Reaver waggles almost comically about through the rent for a moment, then one of Kain's hands punches through the gap as if the roof is made of rice paper.

He is _not_ doing that. He cannot be_ doing_ that…I knew he was strong, but…

Kain rips his way into the carriage with no more effort than if he were unwrapping a Christmas parcel , and drops down by my side looking pleased with himself. The blade of the Reaver hits the floor just in front of my eyes. 

Someone's pleased because they've got their sword back. 

I can't help it: I have to look up through the hole to see if the demon was a vision or reality: neither I hope.

A slow drool of some dark, stinking liquid is starting to dribble through the punctured roof. A few drops of it hit my face as I look up, and I struggle to control my retch impulse. I drag my fingers through my hair in distress, encounter the dried blood from Janos' hands earlier, and gag. 

My eyes are pricking with tears about to fall. But Kain is glaring down at me in complete disgust, and I swallow hard, several times. 

The first rule of predators – always take the weak ones first. 

With this thought lodged firmly in my forebrain, I grip the handrail and haul myself upright. My knees have not yet swelled beyond movement, thank god. 

Kain says, "How much further?"

He does not look like someone to whom the reply "About fifty miles" will be welcome. 

It's almost a relief not to have to answer him as another demon-leg punches through the weakened roof and flails wildly about, obviously trying to get at us. 

It catches and trips the emergency alarm in the carriage. The lights go out: the train slams to a halt so fast that I am thrown hard against the sides of the carriage. Kain snarls in the sudden darkness, and his eyes reflect like a cat's as the emergency lighting struggles to kick in. My head hits the doors hard, too hard – will my skull fracture?

I feel very sick…somebody help me, please, I think I'm dying…

Dying.

There are an awful lot of candles. 

Funny, I always thought I'd be forgotten at my funeral. But someone must have remembered, because the room is bright, almost cheerful, with a yellow, dancing candle-light. 

No flowers, though. 

In fact, if I'm dead, how come I'm still in so much pain? 

The ceiling of the crypt looks well-decorated and old. I never made a will, but if I had done I would've asked to be buried. Even in death, cremation scares me. 

So many candles…the flickering shadows are almost hypnotic. I could just lie here…sleep…it will all be all right…

That feeling jolts me out of it. I know that feeling too well. Concussion. I have concussion. Mustn't sleep. Must…move…

It's one of the first things they tell you in A&E, when you go in with a concussion. It was the only time Gary actually took me to the hospital himself. I wouldn't stop sleeping. Kept dozing off and was hard to rouse. He thought he'd brain damaged me. 

So…not dead, then. 

Like it was to Kain, this comes as somewhat of a surprise to me. 

I move a leaden hand, and my heavy, shock-clumsy fingers grip a handful of something soft, silken.

Feathers. 

I manage to loll my swollen head to one side, and try to say "No…", but all that comes out is a whistling gurgle of disbelief. 

No. Not here. Not now…

Janos lies next to me on the slab, his face locked in an expression of pained resignation. His deep eyes are closed: his lips slightly parted to show a glimpse of fang. His chest is the same as Kain's was – a ravaged horror, heart taken by force. 

There is no smell of blood, or decay. Only the candles, a waxy heat smell, and, as I struggle to move away from the beautiful corpse, the musty scent of feathers and aged fabric.

Janos has been lying here – how long? Caught in limbo for eternity. And here I lie with him, close enough that I can see the ragged edges where he broke his claws duelling with the Sarafan, close enough that I could be his twin. I must be improving – for although I am not happy to be here in Nosgoth (further proof that my sanity will never now be recovered) I find that Janos does not scare me so much, lying here, as he is, comatose. 

It must be meeting Kain again that did it. Better the devil you know? I don't think so. As far as vampires are concerned, Kain has never behaved like anything but the devil to me, and Janos? Almost an angel. 

Kain. Good point. 

If Kain did not bring me – if I somehow got here alone this time – how do I get back? And where is he, anyhow? Is he right this minute massacring a whole squadron of riot police back at the Angel Islington? 

I think I'd rather be _here_. 

Wait.

Someone's coming, coming click-click-click in from the mausoleum's outer chambers. I struggle to move my sluggish body, not wanting to be caught here with Janos at my side – especially if it is Vorador who comes…

Click-click-click…pause. Click-shuffle-click-shuffle-drag. 

Even the footsteps sound weary, and disillusioned. 

Raziel walks through the doorway, holding something in one hand that moves, pulses unnaturally of its own accord. That something he holds as if it means the very world to him – as if it has cost him everything he holds true and dear to get it. It must be, of course, the Heart of Darkness, the relic that can bring Janos back from the dead. I'd been on my way to find it in Avernus when I ran out of time to play. 

He no longer looks as if vengeance consumes him. Those pale incandescent eyes are open, yet downcast. His ruined wings hang at his back as if they've served their purpose and will soon shrivel and drop like leaves in autumn. 

_Raziel, have you given up at last…?_

I watch him approach, and as he does it finally all comes together and I moan, half in pain, half in realisation.

Janos's heart. Kain's heart. 

Only one heart, really. Can't live two lives. 

Raziel must have taken the heart from Kain's living (living? Are undead ever classed as living?) body and…

…and then what?

Maybe it's the concussion talking, but I am caught in a quandary now. If Raziel has defeated Kain in battle, then I may be in some serious, serious trouble. Raziel always used to be the good guy, the wronged, the bearer of righteous indignation. He was the one I could identify with: his life was full of apparently purposeless wrong, done to him by forces far beyond his control. 

But now it seems from all my gameplay and all my speculation, that he has a genuine choice. 

Fight, or flight? 

Raziel does not look like he is going to run away from the truth any longer. For good or bad, he's going to find out why he's lived three lives – why he's suffered as he has. 

_Redeemer, destroyer, pawn, messiah…._

I envy him the fact that he's at least going to know. It's more than most of us can ever hope for.

_But if he has changed so much…___

My head droops, wanting to give in and sleep, and it's just as I'm fading back into unconsciousness that I hear him say, in completely genuine surprise: "Rhianna…?"


	9. Chapter 8

**URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 : CALL TO ARMS**

**Chapter 8**

Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain was created by Eidos.

_*sighs* I'm losing it. If this chapter makes no sense I do apologise. _

"Rhianna? Rhianna, can you hear me?"

"Rhianna, if you can hear me, please open your eyes."

"Good. Good. Hello, Rhianna, my name is Stephen. I'm a paramedic, okay? You have to stay awake. Keep looking at me."

Wow, Stephen is ugly.

"Good girl. We're taking you to hospital, you're going to be absolutely fine."

I mean it. He's got a spot on his chin the size of Gibraltar. What is it about paramedics that they always seem to look about fourteen years old…I must be getting old myself…

Wait.

Raziel.

"Rrrrraaaazzz…" I manage to say, and Stephen looks at me as if I'm a dog who's just performed a particularly clever trick. I try again. Raziel, where is Raziel? I have to talk to him…

"Rrraz-i-eeeell…"

Someone straps an oxygen mask over my mouth and nose. 

And then of course my brain begins to co-ordinate with what my eyes and other senses have been telling me. This is not Nosgoth - last time I checked, Nosgoth had no paramedics. Or any medics, even. I am back again. London's lights surround me: the air is harsh and cold on my face. 

What is happening to me? I think I'm starting to know how Raziel felt in _Soul Reaver 2_. Bouncing about through different places, different times. It's like having jet-lag, but constantly. That strange, dreaming unreality that comes upon travellers at 3 a.m. in some foreign land when everything is quiet and empty – the sense that you are not where or when you should be. 

I wonder…no, it's far too ludicrous to think that this is Moebius' doing. I am nothing. I do not even belong in Nosgoth. There is no reason why….

…someone starts to wipe (iodine? Feels like acid) over the scrapes on my knees. I convulse, my cries of pain muffled behind the oxygen mask. Stephen is holding me still.

_But you have only human strength,_ I feel like saying, _I've been held and restrained by the strongest of vampires…_

No. No time-streamer, no destiny. Not me. Not my problem. I am just doing a very normal, human thing, and having a breakdown. It's very simple. I will spend the rest of my days in a nice mental institution, talking to vampires that no-one else can see. 

And this would have been a very nice, warm, fluffy fantasy to live out, but I can see armed police at the stairs of the Underground. They are terrified. Even from my prone position, I can see their fear in the set of their shoulders, the way one tugs at the straps on his riot gear. They shift their guns to firing position and wait. They haven't been told what they're preparing for, only that it is bad, very bad. 

Kain must still be down there, in the station. 

Vampires that no-one else can see….if only. 

I start to struggle. I want off this stretcher. Kain – they don't know what they're dealing with – he could break all of these heavily armed police with a thought. A_ thought_. 

And they are going to shoot at him. He's going to get a lot worse than peeved if they do that. 

I scrabble at Stephen's shirt. "Don't let them shoot him!" I manage, my voice echoey behind the mask. 

"Is there a friend of yours still down there?" Stephen asks, and his eyes say _if there is, your friend is dead…_

I glare at him with all the force and panic I can muster.

"Do – not – shoot – him," I repeat. And then someone jabs a needle into my arm and I am lost to greyness again. 

In the odd, fuzzy dreams that go with drugged sleep I hear a voice.

This is not unfamiliar, although usually it was Gary's voice, and it didn't sound quite so amused, or confidently calm. 

I am not fully asleep, can't be, because there is pain, although a weak, feeble sort of pain, in my knees. But neither am I awake. 

The room seems green, blue, grey. Warped and twisted. The IV drip stand at my side seems bent out of shape: the bed twists as if torn by huge hands.  The ceiling stretches away, oddly vaulted and seeming higher than before. Ugly mists swirl across the pristine hospital floor. 

Things are different, while remaining the same. Why does this all look oddly familiar…?

And then the voice, all-pervading, seeming to invade every pore of my body and echo through my head at an aching volume, says:

"Where do you think you're going, little soul?"

The mists are rising. 

"There's no escape…"

And then I remember, and I wake with a vast, invertebrate eye glaring at me inside my head.

The room is not green, or blue, or grey. It's that bland shade of magnolia that many public institutions seem to have adopted. The curtains and beds are decked out in orange, brown, and white. 

All in all, it's very cheerful, if you're an easily pleased five-year-old. 

My head feels as if it is about to come off, but otherwise I'm surprised to be feeling so calm. Must be the drugs. I glance up at the clock. Nearly four in the morning…I've lost about three hours. 

A lot can happen in three hours. 

Raziel must have restored the heart to Janos. Kain, trapped in the Angel Islington, could not have been there to intervene. Does Raziel now have the answers he sought so hard and for so long? 

And what am I going to tell the police this time?

I could do with some answers for them, preferably ones that don't involve vampires and wraiths and exsanguinated bodies in the stairwell. 

I seem to be alone in this ward. That's…unusual. 

I can see a nurse through the glass window at the end of the room, and he is talking to a policeman. No – three policemen, a plainclothes one and two uniformed officers. 

This is not a good sign. 

Some people only have their life flash before their eyes once – before they die. I've seen mine so often it's like a matinee.  Showing twice an afternoon, three times on Saturdays. 

I cannot help feeling small, so small. 

How did someone so small, so worthless, become involved in something so _big_?

_There's no escape…_

I considered suicide. Of course I did. Once when I was a teenager, and again almost monthly, when I was with Gary. When I was a teenager, it was because I was angry at the world. Like Raziel, I felt that the world owed me something for the wrongs it had done me. And then later, older, it was because I knew that I was so small, so insignificant, that my death would mean nothing to anyone. I could not make a difference. The balance of the world would not be upset: the seasons would still turn: without me, things would not change. And death would bring me peace, an end. But I could never do it. I was too weak to face the possible pain. 

Again, my thoughts turn to Raziel, and the weary way he walked into Janos's tomb. His pale eyes…

He has heard so much about his destiny, has been told so may times that he holds the fate of Nosgoth in his hands. 

He is _tired_. 

What will he do, if he finds out that his destiny is not what it seemed to be…?

The door at the end of the room opens, but I do not hear footsteps walking in. 

I try to crane my neck, but it hurts too much and makes my head swim. I can sense someone is here. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Instinct will protect you if it can, but only if you listen to it. I try to stifle my own breath, my heartbeat, so I can listen…

Silence. Not even the sound of another's breathing. And yet still I know that I am no longer alone in the ward, and strapped to the IV as I am, I am helpless. I close my eyes, not wanting to see what approaches. 

"Poor child…"

Smooth talons caress my bruised cheek, and I shudder.

"I had not forgotten you."

Janos, wings fully spread, stands on the air as if it were solid. Like this, he fills the room, makes it pale and shrink in comparison to his striking appearance. He becomes the only thing worth looking at. His eyes are strange, but sympathetic, filled with some desire I cannot identify – to help me, perhaps? 

He smiles to see my eyes open, and he moves to slice the drip from my arm. He is taking me away. Just like before, rescued from hospital by vampires before any awkward questions can be asked. I really must not make a habit of this…

He lifts me and this time I do not struggle. For one thing, I do not have the strength, and for another, I do not want to anymore. I am willing to lose myself in my hallucinations forever, if it will only mean that the pain, the humiliation, goes away.

Janos lifts me with infinite care, turning my head in against his bicep and scooping my bandaged knees up over his other forearm. Now he_ is_ the room. He is all that remains of my fractured little world. All I can see is the cloth of his tunic, the vibrant blue of his body, the feathers. The cool of his skin feels good against my heated brow. And he even _smells_ nice. The mustiness of death is gone from him: he smells like memories, like good summers long ago when I was a child and still happy. 

"We must go now," he says, and again I'm not inclined to argue with him. I stare up into the arch of his wings as he glides forward.

Funny. I must be still dizzy with the drugs.

I don't remember those gleaming red and gold feathers in his wings before…


	10. Chapter 9

**URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 : CALL TO ARMS**

**Chapter 9**

Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos. 

_I know. You're due some proper review responses, but I haven't had time to do them this week…the chapter got finished first, and I hope you'll forgive me if I wait until next time before doing them. ^_^  So for the moment, suffice it to say, thankyou, all of you. You make my day with your kind words._

_This chapter contains some snippets of dialogue from __Defiance__ itself. _

I do not remember a great deal about my exit from the hospital.

In fact, I'm not even sure we left in the conventional manner. My head is buried against Janos's arm, my eyes closed. I can hear his feet click as they touch floor again, but even that is muffled. Pale fabric from his tunic lies across my ears, deadens sound.

I'm so tired. Part of it must be the drugs, the other part…

…just that I don't think I can do this anymore. It's too much. I gave up everything, my virtue, my self-esteem, any honour I might have had. And now I am letting my sanity slip away, because let's face it, isn't it so much easier to give in?

If I thought that by struggling, by fighting, by offering up something I hold dear, I could make a difference, I would. But I really have nothing left to give, and so I have nothing to fight for.

It's suddenly cold, and strangely, Janos seems to be getting warmer. It feels as if his body is containing a fire so hot his skin is radiating it out in all directions. My drugged-up body thinks this is nice. It snuggles against the vampire's sudden warmth, gets in as close as it can against the clothes, the blue skin. My brain is replaying for me a clip of Janos, drenched in human blood, walking up the stairwell, and is trying desperately to galvanise me into struggling.

But you know what? I. Don't. Care. He is rescuing me. He is warm when everywhere else is cold. He is the only one of them who has never hurt me. Who would care if I was to go to sleep here, in the grasp of an Ancient, and never went back to Kings Cross again? 

Then I hear that voice. And suddenly I am almost awake, cuddled in the vampire's arms, and the fear starts to prick at the back of my neck. 

Is it me, or is Janos's hold on me starting to become a little too close for comfort?

"Put her down," says Raziel's voice, and he sounds neither angry nor upset. He…just is. His voice is the same as the rest of him, hard-done-by, weary, tested beyond endurance. Flat.

And yet…something…as if the only tiny glimmer of trust he still had in the cruel world has been horribly betrayed.  

Raziel. Raziel is here. Think, woman!

Shit. Yes. Raziel. Kain's killer. Suddenly being in Janos' arms seems like the only safe place to be. I have no way of knowing if Raziel has finally lost any slender grip on sanity and compassion for stupid human girls called Rhianna he may once have had. If he has discovered the truth about his destiny, he may just want to kill me, as Kain did, blaming me for his predicament. 

He may just want to kill anyone and anything.

I claw at Janos' arm, trying against any useful hope of success to huddle even closer to his body for protection. I hear him hiss. 

When you are surrounded by bastards, find the strongest bastard and make him your best friend. It may not be all that sensible in the long run, but it keeps you alive. 

The Ancient's arms tighten on me, and suddenly I'm finding it hard to breathe. Heat pulses through his skin, and with my eyes open now I can see that the beautiful cobalt of his torso is marred by veins of volcanic red, yellow, orange. 

Janos _burns_. 

I'm sure he never used to look like this.

My view is restricted by being pressed so hard against his body. My brain finally gets its own way and at last I struggle, trying to see more, but it's so ludicrous to feel my limbs flopping and flailing against him that I soon cease. I might as well be punching at rock. 

"Put. Her. Down." Raziel repeats, and I hear that oh-so-familiar noise. He has flicked his arm sharply, as if hurling a pebble to the ground, and the wraith-Reaver is suddenly alive, stretching from his shoulder to over a metre beyond his claws. 

I know all this, although I can see nothing but Janos.

Janos's chest abruptly echoes with laughter, and it is not a pleasant sound. It must be that I'm pressed so close to his ribs: his voice seems to rumble like far-off thunder, deeper than before. 

"Why, Raziel? Mortals are such fragile vessels…do you care for this human child? Is she…special to you?"

I don't care for that tone at all. That tone is relentlessly mocking, and I wish I could see Raziel's expression. Something is going on here, and it doesn't feel good. It feels like when you walk in on your parents having an argument. There is that abrupt, uncomfortable silence, and you know you've unwittingly put yourself in the middle of a private fight and you really, _really_ don't want to be there. 

I hear Raziel shift his weight as he composes his answer in his head. Scrape, stamp: hoof on stone. 

The room echoes. Wherever we are, it's big, and cold, and most likely made of stone. Oh, goody. Nosgoth. Now, over Janos's shoulder, I can just about see the sky, smooth and grey, scattered with darkening clouds. The Pillars of Nosgoth rise against the horizon, ruined, like charred sticks, still seeming to smoke in the heavy air. 

Janos…? What's happening?

"No," says Raziel eventually, "but her body will be a barrier to _your_ body and I do not wish to waste my time cutting useless human flesh apart."

My much-maligned useless flesh crawls. 

It's happened. Raziel has finally lost it. Thrown his toys out the pram and all his marbles with them. It had to happen sooner or later. Just like me, he's quite, quite mad. I wonder briefly if they have asylums here on Nosgoth, then my brain supplies me with an image of the Eternal Prison and I very quickly stop thinking about it. 

"You're not leaving this chamber," Raziel says to the Ancient. "I will kill Janos if I have to."

Even now, Janos does not let me go. So this is how I'm going to die. Caught in the middle of what is possibly going to be the most vicious one-on-one vampire fight in Nosgoth's chequered history. A backswing from the wraith-blade, maybe…or a swipe from Janos's claws? 

Janos's muscles move in his torso and back: he is spreading his wings. Now he shifts me, dropping the cradling grasp and taking me instead by the hair. My bodyweight drags at me as I am swung from claw to ground, my bandaged knees just grazing the stone. 

Why is hair-pulling always considered a girly way to fight? It is agony. The pain shoots through each follicle and down through my scalp as I am dangled from the Ancient's hand like a ragdoll.

I squeak. "Please –"

Janos looks down at me with a savage little smile. His eyes –

Green. Green and empty…

"You pathetic creature," he says, almost kindly (is he talking to me or to Raziel?) "you haven't got a clue…"

"Why did you bring her here?" Raziel asks. 

Now I can see him, admittedly through a blur as my eyes water in the pain of being held by my hair. 

"She knows the truth," the thing that I am belatedly realising is definitely not Janos says. "She has knowledge of the future. She has seen our triumph. Tell him, human, tell your Soul Reaver what his precious Janos Audron read. We have already won…"

The manuals…

I knew I was right to worry what would happen if Janos found out I never finished the game. 

Raziel looks directly at me for what seems like forever. 

I meet those blank white eyes with all the fear and pain that is in my heart. I want to shake my head. _No, no. I don't know anything. Don't kill me. Please don't kill me…_

But the fear and confusion have struck deep: I cannot move, and just hang there, useless and silent. What is he thinking? His expression is totally unreadable. How much does he remember about that time so many months ago? How many years have passed for him since he came to my world and saved me from Gary? The demon that is Janos now waits, patiently, and huffs a sigh, claws repositioning to get a better grip on my hair.

Raziel puts his head on one side and his eyes narrow to blazing slits. 

"Don't you know?" he mocks, eventually. "This is all a game to _her_." And charges forward, the Reaver held high. 

Two things happen. 

One, Janos takes to the air with a screech and rush of massive wings, dropping me without a second glance. 

This time I am slightly more prepared, and I fall well, rolling on my shoulder. 

Second, Raziel leaps over my prone body, clawed feet brushing my hair (have you any idea how terrifying that is? Unless you've ever been caught beneath the hooves of a rearing horse, I doubt it) and starts taking what look like wild, undisciplined swipes at the Ancient. 

Part of me wants to cheer. Raziel, while obviously being not the most balanced of people, is not insane after all. It is Janos who has lost his mind to the pull of a stronger influence: Janos who is the danger to me. And once again, Raziel's intervention has preserved me. 

The other part of me, the larger part, wants to tell Raziel to run. Janos is very strong, and he is practically older than legend. 

I don't think I can look at this anymore. 

I turn my face into the ground, curling into a ball around my injuries as best I can. I can hear the humming swish of the Reaver as it cuts the air: the scream of rage as the demon-angel passes by above my head. Twice Raziel jumps my body to avoid crushing me: twice Janos's claws or wings graze me as he swoops low.   
Your hearing can be a wonderful thing, when your eyes no longer wish to see the horror before you. I learnt this when I first met Gary. The scuffle of Raziel's hooves on the ground are loud in my ears: his cries of pain drive through me as he is hit. And of course, from above, the eagle-screech of the Ancient and the ever present, overpowering downbeat sounds of his wings. 

Without apparent warning something falls across my back, and I make a muffled cry as the weight of it drives home. 

Feathers brush the exposed back of my neck. Janos has fallen across me, and he is _heavy_, heavier than anything that flies has a right to be. 

His body arches. He is in pain, so much pain. Raziel has knocked him from the sky.

Can't breathe…he's too…heavy…

"Raziel,"Janos gasps, and it is then that the weight is lifted: Raziel turns the Ancient's body with one hand, rolling him off me. My ribs ache as oxygen returns to my lungs. 

I stay curled up, breathing hard and gratefully. Lying on my side now, I see Raziel bend to Janos.

Janos's eyes, on a level with my own, are lucid and yellow. He is master of his own mind again, and all he wants to do is die. He wants Raziel to kill him. His hands, stained now with his own blood, pluck at the wraith's cowl in his desperation to be heard. His voice is cracked, ruined, but certain in its intent. Raziel seems frozen. Slowly, too slowly, he raises the Reaver high. 

He means to do it. 

I turn my head away once more. Although I am not, cannot be, sorry for Janos - (sympathy for the vampire? I can't even feel truly sorry for myself anymore) in my thoughts I am one with the wounded Ancient – _let me die, it would be better if I died, then at least I could be sure I wasn't losing my mind…_

Silence. 

The Reaver does not fall. 

For a moment, all I can hear is the wind moving in the vastness of this room.

Then, like an echo of thunder, the downbeat of those outsized wings. I risk a look, and can no longer see Janos's broken body on the ground. Raziel is in a defensive crouch, staring up into the ceiling space. 

His gaze flicks to me for brief seconds. Then he convulses, his body wracked with green lightning that strikes from high above. Blue blood sprays across the floor in a messy arc.

I can't help the scream that is ripped from my throat. 

No…not again…

Raziel drops like a dead thing, twitching and spasming as little crackles of green fire dance over his hands, his legs. 

And gradually, just as it had done in the goth bar all those months ago, his body begins to fade, dissolve, until there is nothing but tiny motes of blue light and dust. 

I become aware of my terrified sobbing only when the last of him has faded and gone. My breath whispers in my chest. Everything hurts. Everything aches, even my hair. I do not look up when the demon-angel's voice says, with gutteral triumph: "Now it is finished…"

Because it is. 

I slump sideways before I am even aware if I've been hit or not. With my past, I always assume I have been. It's easier, and you're more prepared for the bruises when you come back from unconsciousness. 

And I drift, not conscious, not unconscious, but somewhere else…

Somewhere in the blue, the green, the grey, somewhere below the swirling mists where lost voices call to each other in pain…

_Help me._

_It won't help._

_There is no home._

_Raziel__…._

…somewhere there is Raziel, and somewhere that voice that is so loud it makes every cell in your body tremble says: "Join the Wheel, little soul…_there's no escape_…"

…and somewhere, I wake up.

And waking, even though it is on the pavement, even though it is with my head on the roughness of the kerb, even though my whole body is so cold I feel I will never be warm again…

…waking is a blessed relief. 

Maybe I didn't really want to die so much after all. Huh.

The roar of traffic, although far-off, confirms my location. A fluttering, as of paper or ribbon, catches my dulled hearing and demands attention. 

Am I really lying on the street in my hospital pyjamas? The severed tube of the IV drip rubs on the concrete and, wincing, I pull the useless needle out of my vein and throw it into the drain. My hand is numb and sore from the surgical strapping, and will bruise later, if I live that long.

The flapping papery noise is coming from my left. 

It is a banner, a barrier, one of those ones that says "Police Line – Do not Cross" on it. The end has been tied loosely into a knot, and it is the short, tied-off stub of ribbon that has caught the breeze and is fluttering noisily. 

A hand made up of three huge talons closes on the stub and silences it. Against the pre-dawn sky, silhouetted against the neon sign of Kings Cross Underground Station, Kain raises one claw to his lips, warning me to be quiet. 


	11. Review Responses 2

**URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 : CALL TO ARMS**

**Review Responses**

_*holds up her usual sign saying "Next Chapter this way" for all those who want to skip the review responses*_

**Tom T Thomson**: *hugs* Glad you like my sense of humour (although I can't compete with Kain…he's such a wit…!) Here's an update, as requested by yourself… *smiles* oh yeah…and _quote: "__Hey, poor just about every one in this story."_ I think that sums the Urban Nosgothic universe up perfectly…

**The Legendary Crusader:** _Quote: "I've decided I'm completely in love with you. No, not really." _Awwww. I'm disappointed now. :P Really glad you're enjoying it – hope you're still reading!

**Tanaquil****:** Yay! *hugs* So kind of you to say so! And…yeah…*can't resist a bit of a drool* Janos is SUCH a treat to describe. 

**Lunatic Pandora1:**  Moebius in tights?! I don't think that cream soda is doing you any goods at all… ^_^ And yes, Young Kain did hiss a lot – I'm not sure if I ever heard Old Kain do it much though… *shrugs* anyway. Today, he roared. (plus? Yes, I would have nicked the Reaver, given half the chance…!)

**Light**: Always so happy to hear from you. Glad you like it! (and I don't mind having the kiddies set on me…they're GOOD kiddies…!)

**Syvia****:** *glomps* I know. I'm a bad co-author. When YOU say I've got Kain characterised right, I rejoice, for you know whereof you speak. And yes…things in Rhi's London are getting so far beyond normal they may never be redeemed *evil authoress grin*

_Quote: "^^ This is just the final bump of hope before you drop us into a valley of dispair, right?"_ *whistles innocently and says nothing*

**Crystaline****-Dragon:** Glad you liked! Here's the update, as requested. Kain gets to have all the fun when it comes to playing with trains…

**Healer-Ariel:** Yes, Kain had to have a lie-down in a darkened room after making that joke. ^_^ and Rhi is not the best hero material. She tries, bless her. And yes, I was pretty upset by the end of Defiance, too. 

**Komikitty****:** Hi! *grin* It was the Defiance game manual. Should've made that clearer…ooops. I've never had a concussion either, but I've spoken to those who have, and it sounds truly awful. Like you say, I'd be "flipping out"….

**Angel-Chan2:** Hey! You're back! Thankyou very much for reading!

**SeedyDeedee****:** *grins* Peeved Kain, like Fun Camera Kain, is a variant model not yet available from Blue Box toys, damn them. He comes complete with a model "Harbour of Patience (lobster pots extra).  Oh, and don't get any supernoodles on him. *snigger*

You know what I like most about your reviews? You tell me the bits I did particularly right. It's really useful…that way I can do more of them!

*gives you more beer so you can give me more rambling reviews…I love 'em)

**Sephiroth**** Hates You:** *chuckles* and w00t! to you too. Glad to see you're enjoying the fic. 

**Mikoto**** Zoku:** *hugs* Hello Mikoto! I must admit, I don't think I'd've had the nerve to laugh at Kain's pun. The Hylden turned up as a parallel to Kain's canon awakening in the Underworld. The UnderGROUND was close enough, right? o_0

You always have something nice to say about my work, and I can't be grateful enough. Plus, I was kicking myself for the decision to use sound to describe that fight. I found it VERY hard. 

**Leth2**: Hi there! Your review really did mean a lot to me – it's so nice to know that no matter what I'm doing, I'm doing it right somehow. I'm so glad you're enjoying the story and I hope you're still reading. ^_^

**Guardian of Tears:** *giggles* Thankyou! I'm glad I'm getting Kain right for you. And it doesn't hurt for you to be mystified occasionally, does it? *grin*

**Moonwalker:** Thankyou! Janos can be a nice vampire, as vampires go – he does get a bit of a raw deal, doesn't he?. It's really nice to hear that you look forward to new chapters. And you're NOT a bad reviewer. You leave reviews! That's good in my book! 

**Morbid Knight:** Hi! Great to have you back! *smiles* thankyou for letting me know you like my fic. 

**Sereda****:** *hugs, as always* I love Kain when he's being especially vampish. Rhi's got a lot of troubles, all right, and they're not over yet…I'm glad you like my descriptions…coming from you, that means a lot…I know your descriptive powers and I am in awe. ^_^ More "spectral" stuff for Rhi coming up, I should think…and I'm playing Defiance again too!

**Shadowrayne****:** Hey! *smiles* I think it would be fun to see Kain in a soup can…how would we get him in? And you're not a retard. I love all your reviews, although I give my special thanks for your latest ^_^ Horses can be damn scary, can't they? 

**Imuthis****:** Hi! *hugs* I'm updating as fast as I can. Honest. ^_^ And I'll try to be a little less severe with the cliffhangers. God bless you too! *smiles*

**The_MarmaldeCat**: Hello! *grins* Thanks to you I now have this vision of Kain wearing a Hawaiian shirt and some shades, balancing on the Tube train and saying things like "gnarly, dude"…..I've been awake too long. 

**Dark_Sephiroth****:** Hey there! So glad you think I'm getting Kain's character right. Previously I only really tried to get inside Raziel's twisted little mind. The plot twist involving "Janos-goes-Nuts" WAS kinda predictable, huh…?

**Fallen Paladin Shadow:** Hey! *smiles* thanks so much for your kind and complimentary words. I too am a seasoned late-night underground traveller…it can be a scary place. ^_^

**Tes**** and Krysta:** It's so great to hear from you! *smiles* Yes, I admit it – I beat her up way too much. It's amazing she isn't dead. ^_^

**PhoenixFlame6:** Hi there! I love the fact you think this fic is "_twisty and spasmy_" – such a great compliment!

**Emerada****:** *smiles* Hey there! I was so pleased that you called this fic a _"work of art". _That's such a great compliment! ^_^ and thanks for all the sweeties…you obviously know what keeps me happy. 

**Dragonseer****:** *bows* always nice to have a review from you! *grin* Rhi is fully human, although she could never be described as normal!! You're welcome to babble on at any time…

_I really hope I included everyone. I'm now going to go to bed. ^_^_


	12. Chapter 10

**URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 : CALL TO ARMS**

**Chapter 10**

Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos.

_I know. It's a little short. _

_By the way, if you've never visited __London__, you'll have to trust me on what the various landmarks look like…_

Something about that gesture makes me really reluctant to ask about what happened to the mini-SWAT team I saw huddled outside of the station the last time I was here. Kain peers round the corner, and his gaze takes in every tiny detail, from the litter in the gutter to the gradual paling of the sky in the east.

He does not look pleased. 

He crouches down in front of me, making no move to help me sit up. 

"Your people are weak and unskilled," is his professional opinion. "Where have you been? You smell of…" 

That heavy-jawed, horned face leans in closer and sniffs. 

"…Janos Audron," he snarls. "But not just that, something else, something…"

His eyes widen. 

His bellow of absolute fury echoes through the alley. So much for keeping quiet. 

"It has touched you! It has held you to its vile body and its scent marks your very skin, curse it!"

I do my best to become one with the pavement as the ripples of his rage roll over me like summer heat. With my ear pressed against the tarmac, I can hear and feel the vibrations of footsteps – heavy, booted footsteps – approaching fast. Sounds like not all the SWAT team left after all…

Kain has heard them too. As he stands again, turns, I notice several neat holes puncturing the fabric of his cape, and a few dark, scorched circles dapple his spine. 

I guess I should have been more emphatic about them not shooting him, huh?

Kain sneers, a feline curl of lip, then grabs my arm and yanks me upright unceremoniously. 

Why is he so angry that the demon-Janos touched me? I am less than the dust beneath his feet…but I suppose that in some odd way he sees me as belonging to him. 

Oh, well. Like I said before. I may be the property of some bastard, but at least he's a big, strong bastard and the only harm I'm likely to suffer now is the harm he chooses to inflict on me himself. It takes the uncertainty out of it, which is always a good thing. 

I'm starting to think like I did when I was with Gary. Oh, joy. 

We're on the move again. My head is starting to ache. The morphine must be wearing off, and Raziel's destruction has certainly destroyed any trace of the  happy painkiller-induced haze. Kain is stamping away down the street as if he knows exactly where he's going and doesn't need any interference from a sad, soft blood bag like me. 

Maybe he managed to find a map while I was busy being sedated and kidnapped by demons. 

My stumbling feet manage to carry me along in his wake. It must be almost four, and the city is coming to life. Newsagents are opening. There is traffic on the roads again, and HGVs are thundering past in a wave of smoke and noise. 

We pass by people, too. Drunk people, still not home from a night out. Shift workers, either heading in or heading home. And of course, in London, those people who don't treat the streets as a transient home. Eyes from under blankets in shop doorways watch Kain with close attention as he stalks past, head high. 

No-one says a word: no-one stops us. 

It is moments like these that convince me of my true insanity. A vampire lord with bullet-holes in his spine and a raw red gash on his chest has walked through the early streets of London and has not caused so much as a shouted insult to be levelled at him. 

Is it just that they don't see him, or that they don't want to see him?

But if that is so, what about Gary?  What about the girls who tried to flirt with Kain in that club, shortly before he nearly killed me? What about the guys with the riot gear on who were crouched, so very afraid, by Kings Cross? 

Oh, people see them all right. But is what they're seeing the same as what I see…?

My brain isn't strong enough to think about these weighty existential issues right now. It wants to sleep. And so, just as I once managed to make it all the way from my university rooms to the lecture halls without waking up _at all_ in the mornings, I make it across London. Half-dozing on my feet, woken sporadically by stabs of pain from my knees and the jolt as my feet drop over kerbs and stumble on litter. My mind is caught in dreams and half-truths:  I kick a broken bottle that in my dream is a long-ago football. 

Kain is leading without faltering or stopping, as if following some internal trail of his own…and in my half-dream, I am very small again, holding onto my father's hand as he leads me through the amazing and yet terrifying aquarium that used to be housed in a building at the edge of the Thames. 

That aquarium inspired my dreams and housed my nightmares. I remember that during one family visit, I slipped my father's grasp and ran off into the rooms near the back, that were dark and warm and labelled "Deep Sea". 

He found me pressed up against the biggest, darkest tank of all, horrified but unable to look away as the giant octopus within crawled over the smooth glass, showing off all its awful underbelly, grasping beak-mouth, writhing suckers and tentacles…

I come out of my reverie at the sound of water, and the smell of mud. 

Oh, my god.

How far have we come? 

The Thames stretches out before me, a dingy ribbon of water the colour of…well…I'll say mud, to be generous. Early dawn mists are gathering over the city, and hang just above the river in curling clouds. Behind us, Big Ben tolls out four strokes, and such is my astonishment that I whip round, wildly, to check that Westminster is really there. 

It is. 

We are standing underneath the London Eye, that fabulous and expensive tourist gimmick, at which Kain is currently staring up at in utter disbelief. That long-ago aquarium used to be around here somewhere, and that big white stone lion that sits on the end of the Westminster bridge…it's been years since I walked along South Bank and past the Royal Festival Hall…

"What –"

Kain finally finds his voice. 

"This!" he demands, taking in the vast arch of the London Eye's wheel, the hanging passenger capsules and the pale blue neon glow that surrounds it with one sweep of his arm. "What…IS this?"

He sounds genuinely surprised by it. I resist the urge to say, _the world's biggest Ferris Wheel? _

They probably don't have ferris wheels where he comes from. 

"It's…it's a…"

Go on. Tell me what YOU would have said that would have made any sense. However, I am saved. He beats me to it. 

"It is…a Wheel…" 

The memory of that voice ripples through me and I go cold. 

_Join the Wheel, little soul…there's no escape…_

Oh, no. 

How on earth am I going to disillusion him about this one? Kain loves metaphors. Real-life metaphors are probably far easier to come by in Nosgoth. 

Kain shakes his head as if trying to discourage flies, and seems about to interrogate me further on the subject of Wheels – but at that moment there is a heavy, wet, roiling noise, like someone stirring a  big pot of treacle with a stick. 

The Thames sloshes as if some vast whale has slapped its flukes down unannounced and the smell of mud rises from beyond the parapet. Kain glares suspiciously and stalks towards the edge –

"Kain!"

The vampire freezes, back upright and taut with sudden tension. The voice that hailed him by name quavers, frightened and unsure.

"You're…dead!"

"And you," says Kain in a tone purring with immense satisfaction, "are a bit premature."

The arch of the Eye framing him like an unholy halo, Moebius's pale, milky eyes flick from Kain to me as if searching for an explanation, but I am not looking at him anymore.

I am looking, with all the fascination of that eight-year-old girl in the aquarium, at what is currently bathing in the muddy depths of the Thames. 


	13. Chapter 11

**URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 : CALL TO ARMS**

**Chapter 11**

Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos. 

**"Did I go too far? If I went too far, tell me, and I'll…oh." - Vladimir Mikhail, _Nexus Dreams._**

I can't see its head.

Does it have a head?

Like some dreadful optical illusion – you remember those Magic Eye pictures that were all the rage a few years ago? Pages of repetitive patterns that if stared at long enough formed a 3-D image – the vast, tangled mass that is Raziel's Elder God emerges from the water. 

Great. Not only am I insane, my eyes are playing up too. 

Because it just isn't _possible_ for anything to be that big. The tentacles reach up, fading to indistinctness against the paling sky, curling around the arch of the London Eye, and reach down, questing, into the unmarked depths of the Thames. I cannot see where the body (if it has a physical body that can be constrained by physical parameters) ends.

It's making my mind ache just to look at it.

Just like when I was eight, that thing, tentacles writhing and coiling malevolently like a nest of vipers, is now my world. No, no – it is a world in itself, and I am an unwelcome intruder. I remember – my face pressed to the glass, my breath condensing, and still that alien, slit eye stared at me from within the tank as if trying to remember my face for future reference.

I was so frightened, so unused to being that close to something so utterly unlike myself, but I could not move.

I am caught again, mesmerised, and it is only when Moebius, behind me, utters a bubbling cry as Kain thrusts the Reaver up between his ribs that I look away from the river and try and focus on the other problem. 

The man slumps against Kain, his rubbery lips twisting into a forced smile. There is blood on his face, blood pooling at his feet. 

He is dying. 

Somehow I fail to have any feelings at all on the matter. 

There seems to have been some sort of repartee going on between the vampire and his victim, but as Kain pushes the man away in disgust and he falls to the pavement, all conversation is over. 

Kain stands and watches the corpse for a moment as if suspecting it will resurrect itself: then, when no miracle occurs, he puts his head on one side and gives me an unfriendly look. 

"What?" he snaps. "What are you staring at, woman, or have you lost what little wit your kind possess?"

My eyes, which had been following the slow flick-flick-flick of a nearby tentacle in horrified fascination, are dragged reluctantly up to meet Kain's impatient face.

He doesn't see it…

Oh. My. God. 

He doesn't see it. 

I'm having hallucinations that even my other hallucinations can't see. 

There must be a whole shelf of psychology textbooks just_ waiting_ to be written about me. What's happening? Raziel can see it, always has been able to. 

Kain snorts, strides towards me (_through _a tentacle! my mind screams at me, he just walked THROUGH one!!) and peers over the edge of the parapet. 

"Nothing," he mutters, and glares at me.

Moebius's staff is lying a little way off, having rolled away and come to a halt against a large litter bin. Kain's attention (easily distracted) turns to this and mercifully turns away from me. 

Because really, I'm not feeling in any state to talk to him. Not when the whole sky seems to be alive with tentacles and every tentacle seems to sport pale, unhealthily milky blue eyes…

A boat chugs past on the water, straight through the centre of the largest eye I can see. It's almost as if…it's not real somehow, as if it came across this reality, took a slight step to one side, and now exists in that sidestep. 

It is…truly horrible. 

And then that one huge eye fixes upon me and a voice louder than any strike of Big Ben murmurs: "I can _see_ you, little one…"

My heart stops, for one terrified moment. Then it jolts again, painfully hard, thumping, pounding. My body shudders.

For a moment there I thought he'd stopped it for good. 

Can anything in this or any other world kill with speech alone…?

And that sounded like just a random thought. A passing comment on something unimportant. 

I would hate to be near this thing if it ever got really worked up about something. 

My head feels bad. Dizzy…the harmonics from that voice are turning my brain to jelly, I'm sure of it.

I clutch at my temples, trying to squeeze away the pain. My eyes covered, I sway to stop myself from falling…

"Rhianna," says Raziel quietly from behind me, "I thought you were dead."

I blink, and lower my hands. Green, grey, blue. 

The world has changed. Kain is nowhere to be seen, and the Elder God suddenly more than fills everything, fills this world as if he holds all of it in his coils. 

I clear my throat, which feels dry and sore. "I thought you were dead, too," I manage. Raziel is just a few feet away, perched on some rock in a half-sitting sprawl, his hooves tucked under his legs and his body propped up on one arm. "I – I'm glad you're not…"

Raziel regards me with his white eyes for a second or so. "If you would allow me to finish," he says, still soft, his tone devoid of all expression. "I thought you were dead – and now that I see you here I am sure of it."

The rock he is sitting on opens an eye and blinks. 

Suddenly I have never been this cold, not even in Janos's Retreat. The body of Moebius lies on the floor before us, flickering and insubstantial. I reach out a trembling hand and watch as it passes through the Time Streamer's shoulder like smoke. 

Dead.

This is the underworld, the spectral realm. Raziel is watching me calmly. Why shouldn't he be calm? After all, he's already been here for centuries. He has all the time in the world to wait for me to adjust. 

Part of me wants to be relieved. Dead. Dead at last, after all those near misses. The other, larger part is screaming,_ but how did I die_? 

"I'm…not dead," I whisper. "I haven't died yet…I can't have done…"

Raziel looks at me shrewdly, and shuffles one foot a little.

"I've died so many times I've really forgotten what it feels like," he says, eventually. "But I suppose what the whole process has taught me is that there are many different ways to die rather than the conventional."

His tone is so matter-of-fact  and conversational that I feel that we ought to be holding cups of tea and having cucumber sandwiches or something. 

"First," he continues, "mortal death. That was easy to distinguish. Mortal life – mortal death. Conventional. Then, when I had thought my cycle was over, I was brought back. Am I alive? Who can say. And then –" he shifts his weight, standing, so that his wiry, emaciated height towers over me. " – then, immortal death. Madness. My senses driven away from me, until I thought I could take no more." He seems to be regarding the hazy corpse at his feet. "So, then, what is death?" he asks. "It seems to me that you should not be questioning how you died – only what sort of death it was."

…madness…my senses driven away from me…

My skin crawls. 

"I'm not dead!" I blurt out. Another one of those occasions where I wish my mouth would consult my brain before saying anything. I am in hell with a six-foot-tall wraith who has ten-inch talons. If he says I'm dead, I should have agreed with him. It would have saved time.

Raziel seems to heave some sort of sigh. His shoulders hitch, and then he reaches down and lays one claw inside the corpse's semi-transparent form. 

"Very well," he says. "Then make your choice…and find something to hide behind."

The world comes alive with horrible abruptness. Raziel's form splits, vanishes, subsumes itself into the corpse at his feet: and then I get to find out, at first hand, what the Elder God sounds like when he is angry. 

My hearing gives up after the first super-and-subsonic roar. All I am left with is a ringing, a hissing, the blanket of white noise that comes down over a damaged eardrum to protect it. 

My eyes are so tightly shut against the anger of the God that I do not see the world change again.

"No! Raziel!"

And then I am very, very much aware of my vital status. 

If I was dead, surely all the pain would be over…

…and as if in my mind, I hear Raziel say, sadly, _No, no, not at all.__ When you die, that's when the pain **starts…**_

My shoulder is a precise branding of agony. I scream, and am aware, behind me, of Raziel's gasp as the blade runs him through.

The Reaver has passed through my shoulder as if my flesh were no more barrier than cotton-wool, and into Raziel. In front of me, Kain, an expression of anguish on his face, holding the hilt and trying to pull the blade free. 

"No, Raziel," he repeats, "this can't be the way…"

I cannot pretend to understand what just happened. Blood is soaking into my clothes. All the blood I have seen over the last year, my own, Gary's, the luckless thugs', the drunk on the stairs…all that blood suddenly flashes before me, fills my vision, and I feel hot and ugly inside. 

I think I'm in shock again. Good. It will hurt less that way. I can't help dragging my rambling thoughts to a very similar scene, not so long ago: Gary, pinned like a butterfly to a card by the wraith-blade as Raziel asks me, reasonably, why he cannot kill him.

Talk about karma. What goes around, comes around. 

Somewhere in the back of my mind I think I can hear an echo of the Elder God's laughter.

_Join the Wheel, little soul._

Well, I never was much of a joiner. But too late, I think I'm going to have to become a quick learner.


	14. The End

**URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 : CALL TO ARMS**

**Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos Interactive and belongs to them**.

_This is the last chapter. I hope it's a satisfactory ending.I wrote this in a storm, one late night, and I hope it makes some sort of sense. Thankyou, all of you, for reading this story. Your comments and support mean so much to me. Plus, Syvia? nods You were right. :P_

"This is what it is for…this…is what_ I_ am for."

Raziel, behind me, sounds in at least as much pain as I am. I try to move, very slightly.

Agony lances through the torn muscles in my arm. Instantly my body locks, frozen in place. Nuh-uh. No more moving for me. If I stand completely, utterly still, the pain is almost bearable. I do have to stand on tiptoe, or the weight of my body drags the blade further through my arm.

Strange…I should be more frightened…

Kain looks as if he would like to wrench me off the blade sideways if it would allow him to get to Raziel. He reaches out, his huge talons trembling just a little, and I feel Raziel's thin arm reach out across me to meet them.

His claws close on my bloodied clothes, just for a second. A last squeeze, not for comfort, simply letting me know that he's there.

Then he touches Kain, and Kain's eyes close in pain for a brief second. 

All these years…all this conflict…and this is what it comes down to at last? After all the pain, a single look of regret.

A _what__ have I been doing, all this time? _look.

I wish I could see Raziel. Because I think he's going to turn out to be right. Very soon, I will be dead.

I just wanted him to know that he was right, after all.

Raziel sighs behind me, and the look in Kain's eyes suddenly changes to a mixture of panic and wonder. My back is warm, and as I look down at the gory puncture in my shoulder I see…

…oh, what is _that..?_

Through my body, through the clean edges of the wound, little motes of light are filtering like tiny stars.

I can see light through my shoulder. Oh, God, I can see light. I must've been skewered as neatly as a kebab.

My arm hangs useless at my side, the nerves still sending occasional twinges of protest as Kain shifts his weight and the Reaver moves in his grasp. I moan, a low, keening, animal sound that would have embarrassed me back in the old days.

But when you're this close to death, who really cares anymore?

The light intensifies. Kain's eyes reflect it, glowing yellow like a cat's. Light punches out through my wound, curls, sparking, up the curving blade, and begins to settle in the hollow eye-sockets of that scowling, fang-toothed hilt.

And for one second, as the light swarms around me and the blade in a glowing nimbus, I am not me anymore.

I am Raziel.

I can feel every ache in his body as it dissolves through me. Never before, not even in my Gary days, have I felt such exhaustion. I can't help it: I sag against the blade, head down, heedless of the pain.

So tired.

Oh, _how_ did he keep going for so long?

What he has done is almost so selfless it is selfish: giving up something as valuable as his life for two reasons. One, because it is simply the way it must be: and two, because continued existence would be unbearable.

_This is what I am for…_

Tears prick at my eyes: hopeless tears, frustrated tears.

But what am _I _for?

I could never do anything like this. I have nothing to give. _Worthless, worthless…_

As quickly as the feeling came, it passes. Raziel is gone. The emptiness that replaces the sense of his presence is so intense it hurts like hunger in my gut. 

I hear Kain, above me, snap: "What in hell…?"

The blade is withdrawn abruptly, and with no finesse. I sag to my bandaged knees, eyes blurred with tears, cradling my useless arm, which is rapidly going numb as the nerves begin to starve of blood.

Oh, Raziel…

The tarmac feels slick beneath me. I wonder how long it takes to bleed to death? Always seems to be quite a quick process when you see it in the movies. Like the cowboys who get shot in the stomach. They always seem to die almost instantly from a wound that should probably take hours to be fatal.

I can't believe Raziel is gone.

Like he said, he's died so many times…but he always came back before…that's a movie thing, too. The good guy may get shot, but he survives, is resurrected, is saved.

No-one saved him. And me, what chance do I have? If this was a movie, I'd be the comedy sidekick. I don't even have the relative security of being the love interest to hang onto.

The pain is starting to recede, which I am taking as a bad sign. My arm is most likely paralysed, the nerves severed neatly at the shoulder.

"False god," Kain spits out.

I open my eyes and tremblingly wipe my tears on my good arm.

The octopus had coalesced out of the dark, dark water like smoke. Again, an optical trick. It had always been there. The plaque by the tank had told me that an octopus can change the colour of its skin to disguise itself. But I saw it, well enough, when my eyes had adjusted to the darkness…

And it is in this way that this looming, tentacled horror wreathed itself in godhood and disguised its true intention. I know by the way that Kain is staring that he sees it now, now that his eyes have adjusted, and that it is anathema to him. He hates like no man or vampire on this earth or any other has hated before.

I look around myself.

We are still beneath the London Eye…I think. Of all the things I have seen during the last few hours, this is the weirdest of all. Because now I think I can see, really see….

I used to think of London as _here_, and of Nosgoth as _there_. But now, watching Kain as he starts to hack his way towards the Eye of the God, I think I finally get it.

It's not a matter of _here_ and _there_. It's not even a matter of _me_ and _them_. It's never been separate. It's been all about _this_, all along, this fight, this realisation.

There are none so blind as those who will not see…

Years ago, I stared into that aquarium and I saw my future.

Dark, grasping…and unchangeable.

And as Raziel looked up in disbelief so long ago after several lifetimes of pain, so I look up at the Eye now.

_"Raziel…you are worthy…"_

Worthy.

Kain hacks vast chunks of rubbery tentacle, which are thrown flying around him as he moves. The London skyline is still here, but it seems pale in comparison with the massive, writhing bulk of the Elder God. Its howls of disbelief and vows of retribution are ringing in my ears, coursing through my brain. It is being beaten. Kain is unstoppable, a whirling knot of muscle and fury, the Reaver glowing as it swings in his hands.

I want to see. I want to see it die. Whether this is part of Raziel or me, I want to see my old nightmare go down and go down hard. This has to be the end, this has to put a stop to the cycle of pain. Who knows? It could even be a new beginning…

So I am almost rather cross when a large lump of severed tentacle connects with my forehead and knocks me out cold.

Ouch.

And when I wake, of course, it is all gone.

Ouch.

It was ALL a DREAM…

The refuge of all the best soap opera writers. However, most dreams don't leave you with an arm you could happily use to keep spare pins in…or maybe yours do? I don't know.

I sit up, supporting my dead arm (ouch), and take a look around me.

The sun is coming up over the Thames, and the yellowish glow in the sky is too bright for my tear-reddened eyes. I wince, and turn away, and it is then that I realise that it is not ALL gone, not ALL a dream…

Kain is standing in the shadows on South Bank, his arms folded as he watches the breaking dawn. The Reaver is sheathed across his back, the glowing eyes turned away from me. I am glad. I don't think I can look at it anymore, knowing what I know.

He turns his head to look at me, and he seems wearily calm.

"You should not have seen that," he says, eventually, and although he is speaking softly his voice resonates through me…as if I were a bell and if you tapped me, I would chime.

I don't chime. Instead, I weep. I have no idea if I'm weeping for Raziel, for my arm, for my own futile stupidity. And at last, when dehydration permits no further tears to be shed, I subside, and realise that he is knelt beside me.

Still watching. He does not touch me. The sunlight creeps up over the bridge, and Kain's eyes flick to the shrinking pool of shadow that we are crouched in.

"I…am the last," he says, still quiet. "All that remains. What else is there to be said? Only this: I am Kain, I am Balance. And I have made things right."

My throat makes a gurgling sound as I try to speak, and Kain leans in, listening with curious intent.

"But at what cost?" I manage at last, in a barely audible whisper. "At what _cost_?"

Kain meets my eyes, and for the first time since I met him I am not afraid of him. Perhaps it's the blood loss. Perhaps it's because I have seen the true enemy, and it isn't him after all.

"There was no cost that was not calculated centuries ago," he says. "Take heed, human child. Every drop of blood, every sacrifice – all is accounted for."

He unhooks the blade, then, and holds it out hilt-forward so that I have to look into those glowing, skull-set eyes. "Have hope," he concludes. "That is the best I can offer you. It was the best Raziel could offer me."

And it is looking into the skull-shape of the Reaver that I watch him fade, my blood thumping painfully in my head, until there is only me, and South Bank, and belatedly, I realise, a homeless guy asking me if I'm okay.

And that's it.

Well, no, not quite it.

Hospital. Of course. My arm is not lost to me after all. It is badly damaged, but after months of therapy (the nurses promise me, smiling their tight, casual kindness smiles) I may yet be able to use my fingers again. They give me a nice clean sling, a note to take to my own doctor, and let me out into the bright, stinging afternoon sunshine.

And I look about myself like a child going into school for the first time and I think…

…What _now?_

My looks, for the moment at least, are ruined and I don't think I could go back to prostitution anyway…my flat must be covered in blood from both myself and Kain, there's a dead man in my stairwell, and I don't even have enough money to get a bus or the Tube home.

So what should be my next move?

My first thought, first impulse, is to run again. Run back to Wales. Run back to the refuge near my old home, run anywhere. I glance across the road. A cash machine, a bank. Well, it's a start. Take the last of your money and run…

But where does that get you, really? my treacherous brain whispers. Look at Raziel. How long did he run for? It's your life. You can't escape it.

So I determine, instead, to go to the police.

I have no idea what they'll do with me. I'll tell them about my prostitution racket, about the guy who took half my money each time, about my debts and the drugs they sell next door, and the man in the stairwell (although I think I WILL have to gloss over some of the vampire bits…). I may go to prison.

It's not a sacrifice on the same scale as Raziel's, to be sure, but I think I get it, now. I have purpose. It may not be good, and it may not save me, but at least I have purpose again…

I can be worthy, too.  
I cross to the bank to use the ATM anyway on my way to the police, and stab at the keypad with my one good hand. The machine bleeps, flashes up the message "Balance Overdrawn" – and without perhaps realising why at first I start to cry again.

Oh, God. I'll miss you, Raziel.

Because it won't be the same. I can replay the games, but in my heart I will be able to feel the memory of his soul filtering through my body, and I will know he is gone.

People are starting to stare, so I grab my card as the ATM rejects it, and hurry back to the kerb so I can cross the road again.

There will always be balance, and there will always be chaos. But in the end, if you go overdrawn, something, somewhere, has to give…

Oooh, look. A penny.

I step forward, stoop down and reach for the coin, which is lodged upright in a crack of the road. It gleams brightly.

See a penny, pick it up, all day long you'll have good….

The truck doesn't even bother blaring its horn, and so I don't think I'm really even aware of the impact. The coin is spun from my hand as I fall, and I can hear the scream of brakes loud in my ears. Am I falling? Feels like…I'm falling…must've been knocked into the air.

As if far-off, I can see the penny still gleaming as it tumbles through the air. Over and over, head, tails, heads, tails. The truck has come to a halt, although somehow it looks to me as if the wheels are still spinning, trying to move the vehicle's bulk forward, mow me flat. Something is very wrong with my…

…eyesight.

I look up.

Green, blue, grey. Twisted, and warped, the truck is still there, and there is something lying huddled and motionless at my feet that I feel I ought to recognise, what with the sling and the bruises and all…

I look up, and further up, into a vaulted stone cavern roof, where something hangs and watches with eternal patience.

"Rhianna," says the voice, with a kind of wistful glee, "you are _not _worthy…"


End file.
